


A Boy is a Gun

by Pussyhands



Series: Dumb Kids [11]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Dennis Reynolds, Canon-Typical Gang Behavior (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Canon-Typical Homophobia, Drug Use, Eating Disorders (Mentioned), First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, HIV/AIDS, High School, I don’t want to get all heavy ok?, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, These things are mostly mentioned in passing, Vomiting, dennis is morosexual, did you ever know that you’re my heeerooo, mac is a dumbass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pussyhands/pseuds/Pussyhands
Summary: What happens when two teenaged co-dependent losers overcome their internalized homophobia and allow themselves to fall in love.
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Series: Dumb Kids [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689493
Comments: 23
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at a macdennis fic with a happy ending. I'm trying to fix these assholes' lives, ok?
> 
> title from the song by Tyler the Creator.

“Get in boners! we’re going drinking!!”

Dee Reynolds sits outside Mac’s house in her brother’s Range Rover, honking aggressively, indifferent to the traffic pilling up behind her. Mac and Charlie poke their heads out the second story window.

“Quit your squawking bird!” Mac yells down at her “We’re not going!”

“Aaawww come on guys! I stole Dennis’ car just to come get you!”

_“Heeey what’s this?_ ”

It’s said very softly, and yet it cuts through the noise of the Philadelphia traffic like a knife. 

Luther MacDonald is leaning against the front door, looking at her like he wants to eat her, despite the back brace.

“Oh! Hahaha hi sir! Just picking your son up for a party” 

“A party huh. They rich?”

“Wha?”

“I said. Are. The. People. At. The. Party. Rich. Sweetheart”

“Um, it’s my party, and yes, we’re rich” 

Dee’s talking with that high pitched, sickly sweet voice she makes when she’s trying to get something from someone, or when she feels intimidated. In this case, it’s probably the later. It’s the first time she’s met Luther, and she can see Dennis wasn’t exaggerating when he told her about him. Her skin is crawling. Mac may be a moron, but at least he’s not as creepy as his dad. 

“Gooooood, gooood” he keeps his blue unblinking eyes on her, like a cobra eyeing its dinner, as he shouts up the stairs.

“Get your ass down here boy!”

Mac runs down at record speed, betraying his nervousness. He was always on edge around his dad nowadays, since Luther got out of jail the last time and started putting more and more expectations on him, so that where he once ignored him he now watched him like a hawk. 

Mac could see him making all kinds of calculations in his head, about the utility of Mac and the stupidity of Mac and the masculinity of Mac. All three categories he was failing miserably at. It seemed to Mac he was always having to compensate for some mistake committed in the past. His whole life seemed to be just a series of mistakes and failed efforts to right those mistakes, going back to the most unforgivable mistake of all. Being born. 

Mac knew his parents were in the right. They were trying to make him be a better boy. Trying to make him a man, but he was somehow never enough. He saw how hard they worked, his mother picking up extra shifts at the Jiffy Lube when his dad was locked up, whole months of not seeing his parents for more than five minutes at a time. And still, that was because they loved him. It wasn’t like with Dee and Dennis, who’s parents weren’t around because they were banging assorted pool boys and secretaries. Mac’s parents weren’t around because they were working hard, making sure he had everything he could ever need, soda in the fridge, lunchables in the pantry and hair gel in the medicine cabinet. His parents were making the best of a bad situation, they were the greatest parents who ever lived, but even Mac could see the growing disappointment in their eyes. So every morning when he woke up, he would resolve that this would be the day when he made them proud and redeem himself. It was hard, being on edge all the time inside your own house, but he knew it was worth it. Mac was going to be the best son ever. 

Presently his father spoke to him very slowly and deliberately, like he thought maybe Mac wouldn’t understand otherwise. This was from years of watching Mac fuck up the simplest of instructions. 

“ You’re going to stuff your little backpack full of drugs, and you’re going to go to your friend’s little party, and you’re not going to come back until that backpack is filled with money, and empty of drugs. Do you understand son?”

“Uh yeah, yeah let me just...” And Mac sprints up the stairs.

“Get your little boyfriend too, he ain’t staying here”. Luther shouts up at him.

He says this because he’s used to calling every man Mac interacts with his little boyfriend, but Luther thinks no gay man would allow himself to look how Charlie looks, so he’s tolerated in the house. 

“I’m a way better dad than what anybody gives me credit for” Luther thinks. His wife didn’t give a shit, about anything, and especially not about Mac. Raising the boy was up to him.

He’d always suspected. Luther was nothing if not observant, those unblinking, cold blue eyes penetrating deep into Mac’s soul, and now that he’d turned seventeen it was undeniable. The kid was a queer. Luther would never say it out loud, not yet, but it was as clear as the light of day. Why was Luther so sure? Because he’d gone through the same thing. It made him proud that he was able to crush those thoughts into submission, so that in the end he was actually straighter than most men, because he’d chosen it, he knew what the option was, and he’d rejected it. He had a goddamn family for fuck’s sake and what’s straighter than that?

Now he had to make sure Mac straightened up too. No one else seemed to care, he alone was responsible for the boy. Lately he’d been having doubts about his child rearing abilities. By now it seemed inevitable to conclude that Mac was a complete coward, needy as hell, and suffering from some slight cognitive delays and undiagnosed ADHD, or as Luther called it, “being a fucking idiot”. But there was at least one thing Luther had been successful in instilling in his son: the boy was violently homophobic. It hadn’t been too difficult. Just get the fear of God into the kid and he’ll repress himself the rest of his life. Luther doesn’t give a shit how Mac _feels_ or some pussy shit like that, he doesn’t even give a shit about what he does on the down low. His responsibility is to ensure his son grows into a man and there are things that men can’t control. The important thing is that he know those things are wrong, he’s wrong for wanting them and they should always be treated with the utmost secrecy, shame and disgust. As you do.

Mac and Charlie run out. Mac turns to say goodbye to his father and Luther sticks a thousand daggers into him with just one look. 

“Bye dad! Have a good night!” 

All he gets for an answer is a disdainful grunt.

“Dee you bitch” Mac spits out as he gets into the passenger seat.

* * *

Mac’s problem is this: he’s been avoiding Dennis since he got back from the Jersey Shore a couple of days back, after leaving him and Charlie to rot in the city, along with all the other kids too poor to go on vacation.

“See? This is much healthier than huffing paint”

He’d said to Charlie last week, as they were sitting in the alley behind the church Mac went to every Sunday, drinking from a bottle of malt liquor. Charlie had come to get him when mass was over with a can of spray paint and a sock, and Mac had taken the bottle out of his backpack and persuaded him to put the can away. It’s late summer and the sky is an almost warm shade of indigo, soft breeze blowing through their hair. Senior year starts soon, and they’ve got to make the most of the last days of summer, which have been spent huffing and smoking various substances, drinking until blacking out and loitering around looking shifty, searching for something to do.

“Yeah well says you”

Charlie keeps talking, he likes talking about drugs, it’s one of his very few areas of real expertise.

“I miss the pills Dee used to bring, the ones she stole from her house, what were they called again?”

“Really?! I don’t miss them at all. You gotten a phone call from either of them? No. Because they suck. Dennis thinks he’s so classy because he gets to vacation at the beach, he thinks he’s so above us man. He was all _oh I wonder if I should get another pair of sandals_ like, who wears sandals dude? Like that’s so gay! I bet he’s gonna come back all tanned and shit and he’s not gonna shut up about all the fucking chicks he banged under the dock and I’m so fucking sick of hearing about how good looking he is, I don’t care if he never comes back, he can fucking drown in the ocean I don’t...”

“I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE PILLS DUDE!!””

Fucking Dennis Reynolds. It’s always been a bit like this, ever since they met him a couple of years ago, but it’s gotten to critical levels since the twins left for the beach. Dennis this and Dennis that, all the goddamn day through. It started because Dennis didn’t show up at Mac’s house to say goodbye before leaving. Mac had to be told by the Reynold’s maid over the phone that they’d left, and since she wouldn’t give him the name of the hotel they were staying at, he had spent a whole afternoon with a New Jersey phone book stolen from the library, calling every hotel in the state. 

“Dude, why?” Is all Charlie can say when he finds Mac spelling Reynolds into the mouthpiece in case they’re looking for it wrong.

“Me and Dennis have to stay connected bro! That way I can help him out if he gets into a jam” Charlie has nothing to say to that, and Mac never does find Dennis, since Frank, hiding out from an insistent mistress, has booked the family under a false name. 

So everyday it’s “I’m really worried Charlie, Dennis doesn’t know how to take care of himself. I have to remind him to eat lunch, the stupid bitch. And he fucking hates his family, he must be having such a bad time dude. Maybe he forgot to eat and he fainted at the beach and the waves dragged him away!” So he calls the Reynolds mansion again and is told that there has been no nautical tragedy, nor any type of tragedy, really. If Mac were more observant, he’d notice that the annoyance in Maria’s voice from the first call has turned into pure pity.

The weeks go on and Dennis still doesn’t call. Mac knows he doesn’t, he’s spent the days staring at the phone. He tests the answering machine at least once every time he goes out, calling from a pay phone and leaving a message for himself, to make sure it’s working properly. Each day that passes with no news from Dennis, Mac’s worry turns more and more into anger. It’s like he’s finally maxed out his capacity for making excuses for his loved ones, and on the third week he shatters the answering machine against the wall. It doesn’t get better for Charlie though, because now he has to hear about how much of a sexy asshole Dennis is, and “Dennis thinks he’s all that because he’s got those great thighs, and that body that you’d think is skinny but it’s actually pretty toned, and his stupid lip biting like come on man, so distracting when you’re trying to talk to him your know? Stupid-ass bitch” 

As they sit there in the alley passing the bottle back and forth the thought comes fully formed to Charlie’s mind, and he just blurts it out. 

“Maybe you’re in love with Dennis man”. 

It’s like the world has suddenly stopped spinning. Mac is frozen in place, hand in mid air, eyes as big as saucers. 

His first instinct is to punch Charlie in the face. His second instinct is to run, run away as fast as he can. And he would have gone with either of those, Mac was never any good at curbing his impulses, but he can’t move a muscle. Something makes him stare at Charlie and not be able to pull away. He should have laughed, he should have made a snide remark, cleared the air, but every second that passes that option seems farther away. His head is just one big red siren blaring like a movie about one of the World Wars.

Finally Charlie breaks the silence, charged like the sky before a thunderstorm, and says something to change the subject, to which Mac responds automatically, and so on and so forth for a while, in what seems to Mac like a waking nightmare, barely understanding anything being said before he’s able to manage enough clarity to murmur some excuse he forgets as soon as he gives to rush home, running through red lights, knocking down an old lady and almost getting hit by traffic twice.

He’s in love with Dennis Reynolds. Of course Mac’s in love with Dennis Reynolds. He just never thought he’d hear it said out loud, and it feels like his darkest, dearest secrets have been unceremoniously dumped out for anyone to see.

Charlie knows. Everybody knows. His life is over. 

Mac hates that he’s so fucking transparent, he wishes he was cool and mysterious like Dennis, but everything he’s thinking or feeling seems to show up in his face, sometimes even before he’s realized it himself. How long has Charlie known? Does this mean… wait! _Charlie thinks I’m gay!_ Mac’s livid, fuming as he punches the drywall in his room. 

Luther, who’s in the other room just rolling out of bed, smiles at the characteristic thud. He’d spent his teen years punching walls too, and it’s sort of quaint, considering all the other stuff he got up to. All part of the teen boy experience: punch shit until it stops hurting. 

But for Mac, it hasn’t stopped hurting. 

Charlie’s such a fucking idiot. How the fuck could I be gay? I’m the toughest guy in school! Dennis Reynolds is just… he’s very girly you know? Not that he looks girly, he looks like grade A prime beefcake, but he always seems so fragile at the same time. Maybe not physically, though I know I could beat him up if I wanted, I could beat up anyone at school. Just, fragile, like you have to protect him. You _want_ to protect him.

It’s like finding a tiny kitten in a dumpster. The dumpster is Dennis, his whole shit personality, the whole deal. But the kitten is those short moments when Mac is permitted a peek behind the curtain, a flicker of the Dennis that exists only when he’s alone. Only for a little while. A sort of primeval Dennis, before the trauma and all the bullshit. Mac would call it “the real Dennis", but the truth is that the real us is whoever we chose to be, and Dennis had chosen to be a piece of shit for many years now. A dumpster is still a dumpster, even if it does contain a kitten. Mac thinks he can take that kitten home and bathe him, wrap him in a soft towel and keep him forever. _How is that_ _gay??!_ of course it’s not, Mac thinks. That’s just Christian values.

Mac also wants to bang the kitten, but that’s another story. It doesn’t even matter, cos Dennis has spent 56 days completely ignoring him, and Mac never wants to see him again. As they pull up to the Reynolds driveway, Mac repeats under his breath:

Stay the fuck away from me. 

Stay the fuck away from me. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to get all heavy, but then I had to write from Dennis' POV, so, content warning for mentions of sexual abuse, self-harm, eating disorders and generally the awful things that go on in Dennis' head. His opinions do NOT reflect that of the author ok? I want to make that very clear, none of these people are right about anything, ever.

The Reynolds mansion is packed, Mac shoves through the front door straight past Dee and Charlie, making it very clear that he does _not_ want to be there. 

It’s the twin’s eighteenth birthday. Their parents must have forgotten, because the moment the family got home from Jersey they each disappeared to separate tropical vacations without the kids to drag them down. So Dee and Dennis are free to throw the party of their dreams. Well, of Dennis’ dreams anyway.

“Come on Dee! It’s gonna be great”

He’d announced his plans to her as soon as Frank pulled out the driveway. Senior year was coming up. Dennis’ year.

Freshman year was supposed to be Dennis’ year, but he’d had some stuff happen and his mental health hadn’t been up to par. 

Nothing serious, 

just part of growing up. 

It had seemed like everything shifted a little that year. Like his self-image had gone through a funhouse mirror and stayed that way. Dennis wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

He did know one thing: Being a victim is not an option for a Golden God, and so, Dennis welcomed his new identity as he lay on the gray library carpet after school, eager hands roaming all over his barely teenaged body. Not the identity of a sexual assault victim (men can’t be raped by women, everybody knows that), but that of a sex god. Anything Dennis had gone through that year, all the cutting and the crying, all the starving himself… those were just the labor pains of the new and improved Dennis being born. 

Then sophomore year was going to be his year, but he’d met Mac and Charlie, and they’d sort of… distracted him from his rise to the top. Lots of skipping class to smoke weed behind the bleachers. Lots of drinking in basements. It was fun, but hanging out with Ronnie the Rat and Dirtgrub hadn’t exactly helped his popularity. 

The next year was better. He’d started to slowly climb up the social ladder. First, he’d gotten a couple of hot girls to sleep with him. Once you got one hot girl the word spread, and the rest of them started seeing you as a possibility. Through them he’d started penetrating the right social circles. The football players and the cheerleaders, the kids who vacationed on yachts, the top of the pecking order. He wasn’t quite there yet. He could _feel_ his status as an outsider still, and it was because he was still hanging out with that gang of savages.

Now it was time to dump them all. Not Dee, he was sort of stuck with Dee. But Schmitty and Psycho Pete were no brainers. 

Charlie was a little harder. He’d formed a bond with the strange little man, a bond he couldn’t fully understand. Why did he care so much for this illiterate, glue huffing, dirty, smelly kid? Charlie made him laugh, made him forget his troubles, but if dumping Charlie was the price he had to pay for being included in the popular kids’ inner circle, so be it. Goodbye Charlie. 

And then, then there was Mac. Goddamn Mac. Ronald fucking McDonald. Ronnie the Rat. 

Why did everything have to be so hard with him? Why was dumping him so hard? 

When he first met him, Dennis had been in awe of what he saw as Mac’s street smarts. Here was a kid who lived in the bad part of town. Who sold drugs and wore heavy metal t-shirts with the sleeves cut off. Whose father was doing time. To a rich and sheltered kid such as Dennis, Mac seemed almost glamorous. Gangsta. 

Of course the glamour had faded quickly, as Dennis came to realize that Mac did not, in fact, have street smarts. Mac hardly had any smarts at all. He was also needy, desperate for approval, absurdly hotheaded and a complete bigot. Dennis was lots of things, but he wasn’t a bigot. 

That meant that there was a whole part of Dennis that he felt couldn’t be shared with Mac. The part of Dennis that was discovering his sexuality. Was he gay? No, of course not. But he didn’t think he was straight either. Exploring his sexuality was exciting and new, and Dennis thought he was up for anything. He’d put on Dee’s makeup and spend whole evenings in front of the mirror. Trying her thongs on, admiring his own body. He decided he transcended gender norms. How can a god follow norms? He felt above all that. Dennis felt in control of his sexuality for the first time in his life, he felt free. 

It wasn’t a completely carefree process though. Dennis craved some freaky shit, and he sometimes felt like a monster for it. He didn’t know about safe words, about consent. How could he? The Reynolds did have a computer connected to the internet, unlike Mac and Charlie, but the internet was basically a couple of pictures of turtles in the early nineties, so Dennis didn’t know what any of it meant, didn’t know there was a huge and thriving community of people just like him. All he knew was that he was apparently sexually insane. That’s ok, he thought. He didn’t care if he couldn’t share his wants and desires with anyone. 

Except Mac. 

Mac was his best friend, and he couldn't talk to him about a huge aspect of his life. It was actually sort of confusing to Dennis, because for one part, Mac only seemed to accept the most basic, heterosexual penis in vagina definition of sex, but for the other part, he didn’t seem to _like_ women very much. Not romantically and certainly not as friends. Still, Mac was aggressively straight, aggressively ignorant, and aggressively religious. The old timey, smite you down type of religious. He would probably hate Dennis if he knew the real him. He wouldn’t want to be near him ever again. Dennis knew he wouldn’t be able to stand Mac’s rejection. So it was better if he left Mac before he could leave him. 

And it was So. Fucking. Hard. 

Why? Why is that? Dennis went through Mac’s shortcomings in his mind, it wasn’t a short list. And yet… Mac had taken to packing lunch for Dennis. It was just peanut butter sandwiches, and most days Dennis scrunched his nose and refused to eat them, but when Mac forgot to bring them to school Dennis’ whole day was ruined. Maybe it was because he’d never had someone who wasn’t being paid by his parents make him lunch. He’d never had someone who wasn’t being paid by his parents care for him. 

It wasn’t like Mac was constantly fussing over him though. They still got high in Charlie’s basement, cut school to smoke out behind the bleachers, and spent whole evenings cruising around in Dennis’ Range Rover, singing to the radio, throwing bottles out the window and whooping as they smashed against the pavement. 

They did everything together, even things he could never tell Dee or Charlie, like watch porn, the lights dim, late at night in Dennis’ bedroom.

It had started because Dennis discovered some tapes in Frank’s room. He’d called Mac over, and once they were sure everyone was sleeping they’d popped one into the VCR. The guy in the tape was old and gross, and the woman looked like she was getting paid in meth, but it was one of the first pornos either of them had ever seen, and Dennis was the first to break the awkward silence:

“You mind if I jerk off?”

He didn’t know where he’d gotten the courage to ask, and Mac responded immediately with a strangled little 

“No Den go ahead”

It wasn’t long until Mac unzipped his pants too, and just like that, a tradition had been born. 

Now every time Mac stayed over they would pop in one of the tapes, and sit in the same spots, on the couch in Dennis’ room, two feet apart. Not the bed. The bed would have made it gay. But then Dennis started to notice something out of the corner of his eye. At first he thought he was imagining it, but no, it was undeniable… Mac was sneaking glances at him when they jerked off. Dennis peeked at him through his eyelids. When he thought he wasn’t looking Mac would ever so slightly glance sideways, hungry eyes roaming across Dennis’ body. His face, his dick. The first time Dennis was certain he came harder than ever.

He didn’t understand why it gave him such a thrill, but it was exhilarating. The idea of Mac watching him in secret was hotter than any other sexual experience that he’d ever had. All the girls, Mrs. Klinsky, Chrissy Orlando, Maureen Ponderosa, they all paled when compared to jerking off with Mac’s sly, lust filled eyes on him. Now most of the time Dennis wasn’t focused on the screen. He looked straight ahead but his mind was only on Mac. The porn an afterthought, inconsequential, like a game where both parts know what’s happening but know it can never be acknowledged, lest the harsh light of day kill whatever it is. And things went on like that, comfortably unexamined, until the last time, on the last day of school before summer vacation. 

That night they’d been drinking. Most nights they’d been drinking, but on that night they had gotten drunker than usual. Maybe it was the feeling of freedom. Three months of doing whatever the fuck they wanted and nothing more. Three months free from stress. 

How did teenage boys get so stressed?

Dennis was constantly stressed, tense at all times, from the struggle to gain status at school. From managing his weight which had to be at a specific magic number or lower. From keeping his mother at bay, who still tried to get into his bed at night, like when he was little, to tell him things he didn’t want to know, about her marriage and her and Frank’s infidelities. But above all, Dennis was stressed from trying to appear to be something he wasn’t in front of everyone. He was constantly trying to put on a show, the show of capable, cool, mentally stable Dennis. Normal Dennis. He couldn’t escape from his own body or from his own brain. But at least he could escape from the kids at school, just for a little while. 

Mac was stressed because his dad was back from prison. He’d spent years wishing for it, but his dad wasn’t like he remembered. Rather, he was _exactly_ how he remembered, just that while Luther was in prison Mac had gone from being as tiny as a postage stamp to being… well, someday he’d be as big as a skyscraper. The thing was that Mac had gone through puberty while his dad was away, and with puberty came the responsibilities of being a man. Now with school out, his customer base had dispersed, and Luther didn’t think he was ready to move on to the big leagues, so Mac could be a little freer, without the constant need to make money and show his dad what a great drug dealer he was. 

So they’d been celebrating all day, Dee and Dennis’ parents were nowhere to be seen as usual, and Charlie had passed out in Dee’s room, Dee following close behind. They left them draped over each other on Dee’s bed. Now it was just him and Mac, and Dennis popped in a tape and undid his pants, out of habit and for a lack of anything else to do. 

Mac had gotten sloppy. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the hoodie with the hood pulled up over his head that made him feel invisible, but he was looking over at Dennis more brazenly than ever, his eyes lingering on him like he couldn’t pull away, like the effort of concealing it was too much right now, drunk and high off of the promise of summer. So Dennis, drawing courage from the alcohol, and from months of yearning for some kind of definition to whatever this was, looked straight at him and said.

“Take your hoodie off”

And that’s what Mac did, his hands obeying before his head could understand, pulling the hood from his head. And as he turned his head full on toward Dennis they had locked eyes, neither stopping but rather picking up the pace. The porn excuse forgotten, now it was only them in the dimly lit room, breathing heavily, mouths half open, features softened and distorted by the light form the tv, and completely lost in each other’s eyes. Mac came first, it must have been less than a minute, and from his lips escaped a very soft, so soft Dennis wondered if he had imagined it 

“Den”

Dennis came just moments after, still looking right into Mac’s heavy lidded eyes, pupils blown wide with arousal. He didn’t remember anything after that, but the next morning he’d woken up on the couch, in the same half sitting position, his own cum dried all over his hand and Mac nowhere to be seen. 

They’d never talked about it, never acknowledged it. Dennis had wanted to, but he knew he’d scare Mac off. It was so easy to scare him off, and Dennis imagined him waking up at dawn and running all the way home, doing penance in the dark and creepy church, kneeling with his rosaries and repenting, promising God that it would never happen again. Actually, Dennis found it kind of hot. The idea of Mac telling the priest about him, getting hard in the confession booth thinking about it. The idea that he could get Mac into hell from his sex-appeal alone. Perverting a straight guy, because he was just so irresistible. 

What he hated were the real life consequences, because he could feel Mac pulling away from him. From then on something changed between them, the air charged with something Dennis thought was hate. He had broken his façade of strict heterosexuality with him, and they hadn’t watched a tape together since. 

Goddamn Mac. Why did he have to make everything so difficult?

* * *

Everybody is at the party. All the popular rich kids. The air is thick with teenage hormones and Boyz II Men is pumping from the stereo. Dee can see, as soon as she walks through the door to her house, all the kids who have ever bullied her. Drinking from red solo cups, looking like they’re about to turn her way and say something endlessly clever and incredibly cruel at any moment. 

She hadn’t planned to pick up Mac of all people. Mac was Dennis’ dumbass and Dennis was mad at him anyway. She’d actually been looking for Charlie. Charlie could be the other person there who’s flinching and dreading getting suddenly shit on. That way they could form a little unit. Dee knows Charlie’s low status but it’s preferable to facing all these people on her own. She certainly can’t count on her brother. Maybe when she gets her brace off he’ll stop ignoring her in public. Maybe he’ll stand next to her at parties, point out how disgustingly skinny she is to all the cool girls. 

Yeah whatever, she doesn’t need anything from Dennis. 

So she goes to sit at the top of the stairs, where Charlie’s already at with two beers and a paper bag full of glue (where does he keep getting all that glue from? Dee thinks, it’s like he materializes it out of thin air). 

“So what’s new Charlie?”

“I dunno, nothing much”

“You mean nothing interesting happened all this time?”

Dee asks like she can’t believe it, but in reality she’s insisting Charlie speak because nothing interesting happened to _her_ all this time. I mean, maybe it _is_ interesting the way the sun heats up the aluminum poles of her brace so they burn her skin in the hot summer sun. Maybe watching Frank wade around in the ocean like a wounded manatee is interesting. Or maybe witnessing Dennis cycle from being an all powerful god to a little ball of sobs in the same day every day is interesting, especially as a case study in whatever stupid disorders battle it out inside his little self absorbed bitch brain. But Dee wanted the cool kind of interesting, and in the absence of that, at least she could revel in Charlie’s misery for a while. 

“Ok… let me see: Oh! My mom’s got a new ritual, now she’s clapping three times before and after she shuts a door. There’s a new stray cat on my block and I think he’s missing an eye. They changed the formula of my second favorite glue brand and now it sucks. I found a keyboard in the trash and it’s got five keys that still work. Psycho Pete got beat up. Mac’s in love with Dennis. I got ringworm again. They opened up a…”

“WAIT! Wait wait wait Charlie go back a bit there…”

“Oh yeah, you wanna see? I still got the scars, here let me…”

“NO CHARLIE!!”

A few kids turn to look her way so she quickly adjusts the volume. 

“The other part, the part about Mac and Dennis”

“Oh” Charlie looks nonplussed. The ringworm was a much better topic. “Yeah, Mac’s in love with Dennis and it’s annoying as shit”

“He _told_ you that?”

“Well no he didn’t tell me, but it’s kind of obvious isn’t it Dee?”

“How is it obvious?”

“Come on Dee, have you _met_ Mac?”

“Yeah but…”

“You know how he always has to sit next to Dennis when we do anything? And how he’s always asking if Dennis is gonna be there when we hang out? And how he’s always trying to _smell_ him? He carries a picture of him in his wallet for fuck’s sake! I’ve seen it! Plus all this time Dennis hasn’t called him he’s been acting like a whiny little bitch. If I have to have one more conversation about Dennis’ physique I’m going to blow my brains out”.

Dee’s eyes widen. Of course it’s obvious! She can’t believe Charlie figured it out before she did. Dee had always found it annoying how Mac always seemed to side with Dennis whenever there was a disagreement, how he teamed up with him automatically when it came to making fun of her, how he was always following him around. She had chalked it up to Mac’s misogyny but this made much more sense. 

Dee realizes the whole time she’s known Mac he’s been so annoying because he’s been simultaneously trying to impress his crush and forget he even has a crush in the first place. And Charlie and her are caught in the crossfire. 

“Charlie! this is huge!!!”

“What? How is this huge?”

“Well, fist of all I can’t believe Mac’s gay!”

“Mac’s gay?”

“Oh my god Charlie. He’s in love with Dennis right?”

“Yeah…”

“And Dennis is a…”

Charlie looks at her blankly. He has no idea what she wants him to say.

“A man Charlie, he’s a man. And Mac is a…”

Dee can’t help but pause and look at him expectantly. Charlie looks like a deer caught in headlights.

“HE’S A MAN CHARLIE! Jesus Christ!!” 

People are staring again, so she huddles in closer to Charlie, and a strong wave of cheese hits her right in the face.

“Charlie maybe that’s why Dennis has been acting so strange lately. Well, stranger than usual. Maybe they had a fight about it!”

“Ok so let’s go fix them up so they can be normal again and we can change the subject”

“No! No Charlie, you’d kill the fragile flower of love by trampling all over it! We don’t even know if Dennis likes him back! Dennis is into chicks as far as I kno… oohhhhhh”

She looks at Charlie meaningfully. “Do you know what this means?? No of course you don’t know what it means… it means Mac’s gonna get his heart broken!”

“Nah, I don’t think so Dee. I’ve known Mac forever and he’s not the type to get hung up on chicks that don’t want him”

“Yeah but Dennis isn’t a chick”

“What?”

“What??” 

Dee hasn’t felt this frustrated since… since the last time she spoke to Charlie actually. 

“Ok look. You just follow my lead alright? I’m gonna figure something out, but the meantime, don’t mention any of this to Mac _or Dennis._ Is that clear?”

“Dude I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore”.

Dee guesses that’s as good an answer as any. 

She doesn’t know why she feels the urge to help these morons out, but she’s going to be living with Dennis for at least another year, and if he doesn’t get any less annoying she’s going to end up setting his bed on fire. Maybe solving whatever’s going on with Mac will make him easier to live with. She gives up if it doesn’t. Just throw the whole man into the garbage.

“Should I continue with my list of interesting things then?”

  
“Whatever Charlie” Dee sighs as she watches Adriano flirt with that skank Heather. She bets _he_ doesn’t smell like cheese.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always: these people are assholes and I don’t condone *anything* they do or say

Mac is doing great. Kids come up to him, get what they paid for and immediately leave. Just how he likes it. He’s spent the whole summer avoiding all these preppy jabronies. Not that it’s hard, they don’t usually hang out at the bridges, train tracks and street corners he and Charlie frequent. 

Is Dennis like them? He dresses like them. He styles his hair like them. He even listens to the same music. I can’t believe I thought I was in love with a preppy asshole, Mac thinks 

_I can’t believe I thought I was in love with a dude._

His eyes scan the room. He’s not looking for Dennis, of course not. He’s looking for chicks to hit on. Chicks with big boobs, how Dennis likes them. Mac’s not sure what you’re supposed to find attractive in women so he just copies what the other guys like. Thin, big boobs, long hair. He thinks he should go talk to them but he’s not feeling it. They look away in disgust when they catch his eye anyways. Am I that ugly? Mac wonders. No, of course not. They just want some rich kid who’s gonna buy them stuff and drive them around in his fancy car. Someone like Dennis. 

Why does his mind keep wandering towards Dennis?? He’s here to sell drugs and he’s making a killing and that’s enough. Maybe when he gets home he’ll get a “good job son” from his dad. It’s doubtful, but it could happen. 

“Hey Ronnie!”

It’s Tim Murphy. Fucking Tim Murphy.

He walks up to Mac with one of the popular girls (Trisha? Mindy? Cindy? Who gives a fuck) on his arm. 

“Hey dude what’re you doing here? I didn’t think you’d show up”

Why the fuck is this jabroni coming up to him like he knows him? Mac makes his neck high, in an attempt to look intimidating.

“What’s it to you huh?”

“Well, with everything Dennis’ been saying about you...” Tim stops and looks at Mac emphatically.

Mac’s eyes instantly reflect the confusion and betrayal he’s feeling. How is it that this complete asshole knows something about Dennis that he doesn’t?

“Wha… what’s he been saying?” 

His voice comes out higher than he’d expected.

“Oh man all kinds of shit” Trisha or Mindy or Cindy or Lindy laughs maliciously on his arm. “He told me he’s over hanging out with you cos you’re so white trash. Is it true that your dad was in prison for drug dealing and attempted murder? That’s rough man”

His voice is dripping with fake sympathy. Trishdy isn’t even trying to hide her contempt. 

“Look man what do you want?” 

“I was just wondering if you had any weed on you” Tim leans in and whispers conspiratorially.

“Yeah yeah” Mac takes a small package from his backpack. “You pay full price though”

“Asshole” is all Tim Murphy has to say under his breath as he walks away with his weed and the snickering girl on his arm, leaving Mac frozen in confusion. Why would Dennis say that about him? To Tim Murphy of all people! Dennis hates Tim Murphy! 

And if Dennis thinks he’s so low class why does he invite him over all the time? Lets him sleep in his room? Wouldn’t he be afraid of getting robbed by him or something? Mac wracks his brain searching for the meaning of what he just heard. It’s true that him and Dennis come from very different backgrounds but that’s never affected their friendship, has it? 

He remembers what his father told him after one of the few occasions he dared to have Dennis over.

“What the fuck are you doing hanging around that rich boy? You really think he sees you as anything more than his dealer? Don’t be thinking your customers are your friends boy, he’s just angling for free drugs”

He also remembers Dennis breaking down in front of him, telling him he didn’t want to live anymore, Mac holding him until his sobs subsided, parked somewhere far away in his car. And as Dennis dabbed at his runny makeup in the rear view mirror and told him “if you mention a word about this to anybody, I’ll kill you”, Mac realized he’d been allowed a peek into Dennis’ secret, personal world. Doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t it mean their friendship was real? Maybe it doesn’t exist anymore, but it _was_ real wasn’t it? Or is it possible Mac misinterpreted the whole thing. Was it just some kid being friendly to his drug dealer so he could get discounts? He can hear the kids off to his side.

“Hey let’s see what we can score from him”

“Ronnie the Rat? Ew gross, I don’t wanna catch something”

They giggle as they walk away, and Mac tries to ignore their laughs. 

Is that the way Dennis sees him? Just an easy way to score drugs? 

He decides to make a round through the mansion to clear his head. There are probably kids who want to buy but don’t know he’s here yet. Nothing to do with looking for Dennis. 

Just one more year, one more year of having to deal with these assholes and he’s done. What’s he gonna do after he graduates? Probably keep working for his dad. Find a girl with a nice body. Work out more. Mac’s got no more ambitions than that. All the things he _really_ wants are impossible anyways. He’s rounding a corner when he sees them and he stops in his tracks, a cold wave washing over him, like falling into the ocean from a very tall height. Like drowning.

Dennis is on a couch with Maureen Ponderosa. It’s a long ass couch but they’re only taking up about a quarter of it. Maureen is pressed up against an arm rest, legs dangling from on top of Dennis’, arms around his neck, and they’re making out as if the world was about to end. 

Mac watches Dennis’ hands disappear under her t-shirt. Both their eyes are closed and they move in tandem, as if the same life force animated them both. Her hands run through his soft brown locks, the same locks Mac’s always wanted to touch, always stopping an inch short. Of course this is forbidden to him. Everything Mac wants is forbidden. He takes pride in being a man, and being straight, and being tough, because it is so. fucking. hard. It’s not like he hasn’t seen this before. Dennis’ been on and off with Maureen for about a year now, and he’s never been shy about who sees him sucking face with his conquests. Mac thinks he gets some sort of thrill from it, fucking pervert. So why does it hit differently now? Is it because he’s been picturing the moment he’d see Dennis again all this time, and it had to happen like this? 

He’s so motherfucking dangerous, Mac can’t help but think. He’s got me by my neck. 

Maureen and Dennis melt into each other, completely unaware of their surroundings, like they’re the only two people in the world. But they’re not. Mac’s there, openly staring at them with his brow furrowed and his mouth open. And so is Tim Murphy.

“You get a good look Ronnie?”

“What?” Mac turns to him in surprise. It’s like the whole world had disappeared, and now reality hits him like a truck.

“You were pretty focused there bro. You got a thing for Maureen?”

“Oh fuck off” Mac turns to walk away. Luckily Dennis hasn’t seen him, and even if he had, the music is loud enough that he wouldn’t hear a thing, even if he wasn’t busy swapping spit with Maureen. 

“Or maybe it’s Dennis huh? You got a thing for Dennis? I guess that would explain why you two hang out so much. You gay for each other Ronnie?”

Mac sees red. He closes his fists and quickly refrains from the impulse to beat Tim half to death. He’s got a backpack full of product. He needs to sell that product, and _not_ get in any trouble that would imply someone possibly calling the cops. 

So he just turns around and goes out into the backyard. Fuck all these preppy asaholes. Fuck Dennis Reynolds.

* * *

Dee stands in front of Maureen and her brother, neither of whom pay her any mind.

“Hey, Maureen?”

She asks very sweetly

“Maureen?”

“Maureen”

“HEY!!!”

Finally they stop kissing to look at her, as does the whole room. Dee’s good at getting attention when she wants.

“Hey Maureen I was wondering if you could help me out a bit”

Not many popular girls talk to the Aluminum Monster willingly, but Maureen really, really, _really_ likes her brother, so she sighs and asks 

“Sure Dee, what’s up?”

“I was wondering if I could borrow a tampon from you”

“Dee gross!” Dennis pulls a face 

“Oh sorry Dee, I don’t have any”

Dee laughs nervously 

“Hahaha well how about some lipstick?”

Dennis and Maureen look at her in confusion 

“Are you… are you going to use the lipstick instead of the… are you gonna shove the lipstick up your…?” 

“What??! No!!!” Dee sighs.

This is harder than she anticipated

“Just come with me ok? It’s important”

Dennis opens his mouth to protest but it’s too late, because Dee’s grabbed her by the arm and is dragging her towards one of the downstairs bathrooms.

She practically pushes her in and shuts the door behind her.

“What’s going on?!” Maureen looks confused and maybe a little frightened, but Dee’s back to being all smiles.

“Oh, nothing girlfriend! I just thought that since you’re dating my brother we could get in some quality time, get to know each other better”

“In… in the bathroom?”

“Of course silly! That’s what us girls _do_! Now give me that lipstick. Ew not this color this is butt ugly, you have another one? Ew this one looks like you chewed on it. Are you eating lipstick??”

Maureen pulls it from her hands.

“No! Look I think we should get back to the party”

“Awwwwww you miss Dennis don’t you?”

Maureen can’t help but smile coyly and her whole attitude changes. They’ve had a rocky relationship but it’s gonna work this time. She can just feel it. 

“Maybe…”

“I think it’s so brave what you’re doing Maureen, I really do. I don’t know if I could”

Maureen’s confused, “what am I doing?”

“Ohhhh don’t be modest! I think it’s really cool”

“What’s really cool? What am I doing??”

“Dating Dennis silly!”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s brave…”

“See? You’re so comfortable with it! I for one think we should all take a cue from you. The world would be a better place”

“Wait Dee what are you talking about?” She grabs her arm and looks her in the eye.

“The AIDS, silly goose! It’s cool that you’re so ok with it!” 

“What?”

Maureen’s face goes completely pale, and her voice comes out as a hoarse whisper

“What AIDS?”

Dee’s face falls immediately. While she’s a terrible comic actress she’s always been good at acting when she can get something from it. 

“Oh my God… Dennis has AIDS! You’re telling me you didn’t know?!”

“NO I DIDN’T KNOW! What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Maureen Maureen, Dennis has full blown AIDS! I really thought you knew that”.

“Oh my God”

“But you haven’t had sex yet” Maureen’s face shows her everything she needs to know “OH MY GOD DID YOU USE PROTECTION?”

Maureen’s breaking down crying “not every time”

“No no no come here Maureen. You’re going to be ok, ok? Come here”. Her hug feels like being violently pulled against a very hard aluminum fence. 

“Why didn’t he tell me? Oh my god”

WHAM

The door bursts open and someone stumbles in, reaching for the toilet 

“OUT OF MY WAY!!”

And the intruder’s puking up the whole content of her stomach, thankfully, mostly into the toilet. Not so thankfully, the rest on Dee’s shoes. 

“I thought I locked the door!” 

Dee’s furious, this girl’s interrupted her plan, and just when they were getting to the good part. Not that Maureen seems to care, she’s softly sobbing against Dee’s aluminum contraption, unaware of what’s going on around her. 

“Well you didn’t bitch” 

the girl seems to have recovered a bit now that she barfed up everything she had. She’s still hugging the toilet though, too dizzy to get up yet. She either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care about the girl bawling her eyes out.

Recognition dawns on Dee’s face

“Hey! You’re that girl that keeps following Charlie around”

“ _He_ follows _me_ around!!!”

“Whatever same difference look: you’re gonna have to leave…”

“How did he get AIDS?” Maureen asks softly. 

“Charlie”

It’s the first name that pops into Dee’s head. She hadn’t planned for that question.

“Charlie? You mean Dirtgrub??”

“Yeaaah or… he gave it to _him_ , it’s hard to tell. There was a lot of AIDS going on. A lot of AIDS and… buttfucking” 

Maureen is sobbing even louder. Goddamnit, Dee didn’t think she’d be so dramatic.

“So, I’m gonna go? Cos one of you is puking and the other one is covering me in snot. Hahaha little joke, but seriously, I’m really angry for you Maureen. I think you should break up with Dennis right now”

Dee makes her way to the door, stepping over the hunched over girl on the floor.

“Or just leave the party and never see him again, either one is good, just don’t speak to him, don’t tell him any of this, he doesn’t deserve an explanation, you’re a goddess ok? I’m proud of you byeee”

And she’s out the door.

The girls look at each other 

“Charlie has AIDS?”

“Charlie’s fucking Dennis?” 

Maureen runs out of the bathroom. 

“The creep that follows me around is gay, huh” the vomiting girl tries to get up and slips on a small pool of regurgitated vodka.

* * *

  
  


“So what’s up?”

Charlie walks up to Mac. 

Mac’s in a secluded corner of the huge Reynolds’ garden, throwing rocks at a decorative fountain, trying to chip off a piece. Charlie picks up a rock and joins him. They’ve been throwing rocks together for what seems like their whole lives.

“Nothing dude this party sucks”

“Yeah I know” Charlie looks thoughtful. “You know that girl I like? The one that’s really beautiful and funny and smart and awesome?”

“Oh yeah, whatsherface”

“She has a _name_ Mac. But yeah, her. She’s here, wasted as fuck trying to chat up some football player. I tried to help her, take her to lie down somewhere, and she told me to fuck off”

“That’s rough man” Mac’s grateful for the distraction, and a big piece of the fountain chips and crumbles from a particularly large rock. He hoots into the night, but there’s no joy in his voice.

“The thing is though, I know we’ll be together when the time’s right. When the time’s right baby! You gotta just trust these things you know?”

“Yeah, right”

“Look Mac, I know you worry about a ton of stuff, but you know I’m always gonna like you don’t you?”

Mac looks quizzically at him. They never talk like this with each other, not since they were little kids. 

“What the fuck are you talking about man?”

“I’m just saying, I’m always gonna be your friend. Even if, you know, other people don’t get you. I don’t care. You don’t need like, a stupid family or whatever you know? We can be each other’s family, you can _choose_ ”.

“What the fuck’s gotten over you?”

But Charlie’s eyes have suddenly lit up. Mac follows his line of sight. It’s that girl that he likes, and she’s walking straight towards them.

“Hey Charlie”

Charlie’s frozen in place, his expression a mixture of suspense and rapture.

“Hey, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I always thought you were following me cos you were a creep, but now I know you didn’t mean it like that, you were just trying to be my friend I guess. And you know what? I think you’re really strong, it must be so hard, with all the stigma and all. I think you’re super brave”

Charlie looks like he just won the lottery, but Mac’s looking at her as if she’s crazy. He doesn’t have time to say anything though, because the next words out of her mouth are

“Oh, and I thought you’d like to know, Bill Ponderosa’s beating up Dennis”

“What?!”

Mac immediately sprints towards the house. Charlie just stands there in his fluffy little cloud. Never has a girl been so kind to him. Never has he heard words like that from a woman that isn’t his mother. This is the high point of his life. It’s all downhill from here. She said he’s brave! Super brave! That does it. At that exact moment Charlie decides: he’s gonna follow that girl for the rest of his life.

“Come on Charlie! Snap out of it, move!!”

And so he does, and runs after Mac into the mansion, where hooting and shouting can already be heard, like the crowd at a boxing match. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

There’s a crowd forming in the Reynold’s living room, and Mac and Charlie elbow their way to the center, where Dennis is starting to get up from the floor, with Bill Ponderosa hovering above him. 

“Dude what the fuck?!”

“This is for my sister you sick fuck!” 

And with a swift kick to the ribs, Dennis is on the floor again, doubling over in pain. Mac can see Dee standing off to the side, trying her best to control her gagging. He wrinkles his nose. God she’s gross. Maureen herself is nowhere to be seen, since she’d been taken home by a couple of concerned friends. Practically nobody else at the party knew why Dennis was getting beat but most people thought he must have deserved it. Almost everybody at school had been a victim of Dennis’ douchiness, or at least heard the stories. They weren’t there to celebrate his eighteenth birthday, they were there to party at a party mansion. 

Dennis seems confused and disoriented “What the fuck did I do to your sister??”

“Oh you know exactly what you did” and Bill’s back to kicking Dennis on the floor. The crowd gasps but nobody moves a finger to help him. Guess Dennis doesn’t have any real friends at the party. But wait! He’s got me! Mac thinks. Dennis looks so small and skinny, a rag doll being thrown around, and it scares him to see him like that. He thinks he should run over and hit Bill with a roundhouse kick, now that he least expects it, but he looks at him again. Damn he’s huge. He’s a football player, broad back and huge arms. Mac’s just a tiny twink (not as tiny as Dennis, he thinks. I’m so much bigger and stronger than Dennis), and he imagines how a punch from him must feel. Yeah, don’t want that. And anyway I have that injury from… stubbing my toe last Monday. Yeah. Can’t fight him with a pre-existing condition, now that’s just irresponsible. 

So Mac quickly makes his way out of the circle of gawking teenagers. Dennis sees him leaving from the corner of his eye and a sharp pang in his heart eclipses the pain he’s feeling all over his body. So that’s how it is huh? Mac really doesn’t give a shit about him. Why did he ever think any different? and that’s when he decides to stop fighting it. He’s just gonna lay there until he passes out, he doesn’t even need to play the victim, he  _ is  _ the victim this time. Bill Ponderosa can fucking kill him for all he cares. At least his death will fuck Bill over, there are plenty of witnesses, he’s gonna be locked up for a long time.  _ And _ , Mac will feel guilty about it for the rest of his stupid, pathetic little life. It’s a win/win.

His vision goes white, and as he’s being kicked on the floor, like a movie, a memory overtakes him.

* * *

Mac and him, sitting inside his car, which is parked close to Mac’s house, in front of a boarded up factory. He was giving him a ride home, but Mac asked him to park for a while. He doesn’t want to go in just yet. Dennis lights up a cigarette and shares it with him. Mac doesn’t smoke, but he does sometimes, with Dennis. They pass it back and forth, fingers touching and lingering for a second each time. 

Mac’s black eye looks painful, an angry shade of purple and red. Tomorrow it will be fainter, eventually turn greenish, then yellow. Mac says he got it from fighting some jabroni who was looking at him funny. “You should see the other guy”. Dennis knows that that’s not true, but he won’t say anything. Being friends with Mac means you have to live in his fantasy world sometimes.

Dennis sometimes feels stupid when he tells Mac about his problems. What problems? He’s had an amazing ride. A privileged upbringing, a mother who adores him, beauty, intelligence, charisma. He knows that he’s above his friends, and also above Dee, who despite being his twin drew the short end of the stick in terms of looks, brains and personality. He regards his friends with a sort of anthropological curiosity. For someone who’s lived his whole life in a mansion, Mac’s house looks like a shanty town shack. He sees how he has to do all the cleaning because neither of his parents will. How he doesn’t sell drugs because he  _ wants  _ to, but because he’s expected to. 

Dennis is very egotistical and self-involved, even more than what’s to be expected from a teenager. He actually thinks the circumstances of his birth are because of his own merit, somehow. Still, there’s a small part of him, the tiny kitten perhaps, that can’t help feeling like a privileged piece of shit, when he sees Mac struggling with something that he takes for granted, something Dennis has never had to think about, like saving up to help buy his mom’s medicine. Like picking up t-shirts from the garbage and insisting that he bought them. He has a nagging feeling sometimes that Mac and Charlie’s, even Dee’s problems are more serious than his own. He hates that feeling, and tries to drown it out.

Still, Mac’s never made him feel like that. Mac thinks Dennis’ problems are so serious and important. He thinks they’re worse than his! Dennis thinks his problems exist only in his head, and he feels like a little bitch after each breakdown, crying to Mac because he can’t bring himself to eat, while Mac sometimes doesn’t  _ have _ enough to eat in his refrigerator. Mac looks at him so serious, listens to everything he says, and tries to help him. Sometimes in stupid ways, most times in stupid ways, but it doesn’t  _ matter _ . Dennis feels like he’s living a charmed life, and all his problems will be easily solved when he moves out of his house and stops having to put up with his family's bullshit, but he’s more like Mac than he knows. 

Both of them think nobody would want him if they knew the real him. 

“Do you love her?” 

Dennis thinks Mac doesn’t give a fuck how he feels about Maureen. He’s just making small talk, stalling until he has no choice but to go home. Still, he can’t help but scoff.

“Nah man. It’s not like that. I mean, I  _ like  _ her, but it’s not like I’m in love with her. I don’t really think like that, I’m not the type of person who’s gonna be falling in love or whatever. I don’t really believe in that shit”

“Oh”

“You do?”

“I mean… yeah. I think I could love somebody like that”.

“Yeah? Well who knows, maybe I could too. It’s not Maureen though”. 

“Huh”

The sky is pink and full of orange clouds. It seems like time’s stood still, as they blow smoke rings into the dusk. 

“We should get going” Dennis feels sad as the words escape his lips. 

Being a teenager is just being places you don’t want to be. Having to fight for every tiny little scrap of happiness, like sharing a cigarette and watching the sundown with your best friend. Things adults take for granted.

“Yeah I guess”

“Hey Mac?”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind. Meet you tomorrow before third period?” 

“Yeah dude. Always”

  
  


* * *

Mac runs up to the phone in Dennis’ lobby. He knows exactly what to do. He’s Ronnie the Rat. 

“Hello police? Yeah. This guy’s beating up my friend, I think he’s gonna kill him! Yeah, it’s 132 Chestnut. Aha. Come quick!”

He knows they’ll come quick. With that address, the police actually care what happens to its residents. See how long it takes them when someone calls them from Mac’s neighborhood. 

“One more thing! There’s a kid selling drugs, he’s got tons, inside a black denim backpack. He’s wearing a pink polo shirt and khaki pants. Brown hair, medium build. Yeah. He’s got a shit ton, that’s no small time dealer. Now hurry!” 

Mac runs out to the front of the house, where he saw Tim Murphy sitting on the porch from the lobby window, smoking out with his girlfriend, seemingly unaware of what’s going on inside.

“Hey Tim! I need to thank you man, for telling me the truth about Dennis”

“Damn, really? I thought you were upset man”

“No, really. You opened my eyes bro, no one else had the guts to tell me but you did. So I want you to have this” Mac says, handing him his black denim backpack.

“Dude really?! What’s the catch?”

“No catch. I’m sick of selling this shit, I’m gonna turn a new page. It’s all yours”

“Wow dude thanks!! You’re alright Ronnie”

Mac runs back into the house just in time to hear the most blood curdling scream he’s ever heard.

Dennis!

But as Mac elbows his way up to the fight he sees something very different than what he expected. It’s… better, maybe. 

Dennis is still lying limp on the floor, with Dee trying to lift him up by herself, while Bill Ponderosa… Bill Ponderosa’s flailing around with Charlie hanging from his back like an overgrown koala. But what really catches Mac’s eye is all the blood. Blood everywhere, running down both their collars and flooding their t-shirts. What the fuck?! Bill spins towards Mac and that’s when he understands; Charlie’s biting into Pondy’s ear like there’s no tomorrow.

“Oh my god Charlie!” 

Mac runs over and pulls him off, while Dee succeeds in lifting up an unconscious looking Dennis. Everyone else just looks on in shock. They’d never seen somebody bite someone’s ear off before. Bill collapses into a whimpering pile on the floor, clutching at his mangled ear, the minute Charlie’s off of him. He doesn’t seem so big now. 

“Come on! Help me carry him!” 

And with Charlie leading, face completely covered in blood, and Dee and Mac dragging Dennis close behind, they run out the front door and into the Range Rover. They throw Dennis into the passenger seat and Dee gets in to drive, speeding off as soon as Mac and Charlie are securely in the back seat. Behind them they hear police sirens, but they’re already far away.

“Oh my god oh my god is he  _ dead _ ?!”

Dennis stirs in his seat. 

“No I’m not dead! No thanks to  _ you _ though”

“Hey! I called the cops!”

“Yeah? Lots of good that did”, he looks resentfully through the rear view mirror. “What the fuck happened to you?!” He starts, seeing Charlie, covered in Ponderosa’s blood, for the first time.

“I saved your life man!”

“Now see?” Dennis looks accusingly at Mac “that’s what a real friend does”

Mac is sulking in the back seat, arms crossed.

“Why did Bill Ponderosa wanna kill you in the first place?” Charlie asks

Goddamnit Charlie! Dee thinks. I told you all this shit like  _ minutes _ ago. 

“I don’t know man! I have no idea. One minute I’m making out with Maureen and then her brother’s attacking me out of nowhere! What the fuck did you say to her,  _ you bitch? _ ”

He turns toward Dee but Charlie distracts him

“Yeah well, you must have done something” Charlie thinks there are lots of things Dennis could have done to get beat up by Pondy. 

“I DIDN’T DO SHIT! I’m a  _ great _ boyfriend”

Mac audibly scoffs and Dennis feels personally affronted. 

“And what would  _ you _ know about being a good boyfriend huh? Your longest relationship was two days with that whale Jennifer Adams before she dumped you cos you couldn’t get it up”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP DENNIS I COULD TOO GET IT UP JENNIFER’S A LYING BITCH!”

“Yeah because they’re all lying and they hate you for no reason huh? Well have you stopped to consider that maybe you’re an asshole and that’s why no one can stand being with you for more than a minute?”

“You know what?” Dee seems inordinately stressed and is driving very erratically, not that anyone in the car’s noticed “you are  _ both _ assholes, you’re two selfish and  _ unbelievably _ stupid sexist asswhipes and no woman should come within a hundred feet of either of you! I feel sorry for any girl that’s ever had to put up with any of your shit. You don’t give a fuck about these women, you just want to parade them around to show everyone how cool and macho you are, like the whole school doesn’t already know you’re both pathetic losers, and you can never keep these poor,  _ poor  _ women because you  _ know _ sex for either of you is two minutes of sweaty thrusting and groping like the big stupid man babies you are, and then I bet you’re all like  _ did you cum? _ NO THEY DIDN’T FUCKING CUM YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!! Neither of you has made a girl cum IN YOUR LIFE and I’d bet both my legs on it. Do either of you even  _ know  _ what a clitoris is?!”

“That’s a sin Dee” Mac seems annoyed but uncharacteristically subdued, maybe because Dee’s just perfectly described every relationship he’s ever had. 

“Hey Dee?” Dennis looks at his sister “why are we on the freeway? Where are we going?”

But Dee just takes the next exit and looks at Dennis as she slows to a halt.

“ _ We  _ are not going anywhere. Charlie now!”

Luckily, Charlie’s remembered this part of the plan which was told to him as Mac ran off and before he went and bit Pondy’s ear off. He and Dee move in perfect unison to open the doors on the side of Mac and Dennis and push them out of the car, which is as easy as Dee expected, because Dennis is a black and blue mess who should be in a hospital, and Charlie’s always been stronger than Mac, to Mac’s infinite chagrin. 

“What the?!”

“So long suckers!” She yells as she and Charlie speed off. 

“You think Dennis’ gonna be alright?” Charlie asks as he looks out into the unfamiliar landscape and climbs into the passenger seat, elbowing her in the face in the process “he got beat up really badly”

“Ow! Dennis’ just a drama queen, don’t worry about it”

“So… what do we do now?”

“Can I come over to your house and maybe watch some videos or something?”

“Yeah, sure. Maybe you can teach me about this clitoris thing. Is it like a dance or something?”

“Charlie gross! I’m not teaching you shit”

* * *

Mac grabs Dennis and pulls him off the road just in time to not be hit by an oncoming truck. He’s got no idea where they are, just that there’s a lot of trees, very little public lighting and not a pay phone in sight. 

It’s gonna be a long night. 

“Dude I literally don’t understand  _ anything _ that’s happened tonight” Dennis seems too confused to be properly angry. Yet. 

Mac just scoffs, gets up and starts walking toward the direction Dee and Charlie took off in. He’s used to not understanding anything that happens, but if he finds them he’s gonna stick his goddamn thumb through their eyes.

Dennis gets up with difficulty, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and limps up behind him

“Oh, you’re mad!  _ You’re  _ mad. Did my getting beat half to death offend you?” But Dennis falls back. There’s a sharp pain in his side. God it hurts.

Mac just keeps walking, but he can’t help but look behind him. Dennis is limping pathetically about a block away (not that there’s blocks. It’s all trees, Charlie would hate it here).

“If you think I’m gonna carry you you’re shit out of luck, dipshit” 

Nevertheless, he backtracks towards him. 

“As if you  _ could _ carry me. You don’t have the upper body strength”

That’s all Dennis has to say for Mac to scoop him up, bridal style. 

“Who… doesn’t… have… the upper body strength now bitch?!”

“Yeah? If you’re so strong why did you go run and hide instead of helping me out when I was getting beat to death huh?”

But Mac’s legs give out, and he crumples to the floor with Dennis, making sure they fall in the most painful way possible, and accidentally on purpose letting Dennis’ head bang against the curb. 

“Ow! You’re gonna break another rib, asshole!”

“Oooh we wouldn’t want that now would we? Dennis’ precious ribs must remain unbroken!”

“You’re not making any sense you imbecile! What’s gotten into you anyways?!” 

“I don’t know! Maybe I’m too white trash to care for your _super fancy_ _ribs_ properly”

“What??! Mac you’re gonna have to translate cos I don’t speak idiot”

“Oh but you speak to Tim Murphy though”

“Mac” Dennis’ tone shifts instantly. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He knows what he did, I don’t have to explain shit, Mac thinks, but he can’t help it, he’s never been good at not speaking his mind.

“He said that I’m too white trash to hang out with you, that you told him that” he hates the way he sounds when he says it, more hurt than angry. Goddamnit Mac! Be more mysterious! Be more like Dennis!

“Mac!” Dennis grabs at his arm because he’s starting to get up again. “Mac I never said that! Tim Murphy’s a lying asshole!” Dennis lies. 

It happened when he got back from Jersey. He’d run into Tim at the country club pool both of their parents were members of.

“Hey Dennis! How come your boy toy’s not following you around?”

“Who?”

“Ronnie the Rat! It’s like you two are joined at the hip man”

Dennis had felt a sharp pang in his chest at the mention of that name. A picture had emerged in his mind, clear and defined like a photograph. Mac, his hair wet and messy, pale slender frame and freckled shoulders, sitting by the poolside at the municipal pool he’d made Dennis accompany him to last summer, laughing at something Dennis can’t remember, dripping wet, the sun lighting up his eyes and making them shine golden like honey.

A deep feeling of resentment had overtaken him. And then, shame at his own resentment. What the fuck was he angry about anyways? What the fuck’s gotten over you Dennis? Nobody has any power over a Golden God, specially not a stupid piece of shit like Ronald McDonald. So he answered

“Nah man, I’m over it. Can you imagine him at this pool? Hahaha he’d probably try to steal something”

“Hahaha yeah… hey is it true his dad was in prison?”

“Oh yeah man! He just got out like a year ago. He’s a meth dealer, I think he tried to kill a guy too”

“Damn! You hang out with that guy?”

“Yeah not anymore. Now move, I’m gonna go hit the showers”.

  
  


Presently Dennis looks at Mac like he was crazy for even thinking it 

“Since when do you believe anything Tim Murphy has to say huh?”

Mac doesn’t know what to believe, but he knows he hates Dennis, so he gets up and walks away. He does walk away at a slow enough pace for Dennis to follow him. 

How come he’s the best to him? He knows he’s the worst for him. 

Dennis gets up with difficulty, whining and moaning dramatically. Mac’s got a lot of nerve, being mad at him. He started it after all. Just before Dennis left for Jersey. 

Mac fucked the whole thing up, and he doesn’t even know it. 

It’s gonna be a long ass night 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you’re enjoying this stupid little fanfic, feels nice to be writing almost wholesome content.
> 
> Feel free to comment with critique, advice, whatever.


	5. Chapter 5

They’ve been walking for a while now. Well, Mac’s been walking. Dennis has been dramatically limping behind him, making sure to vocalize even the slightest pain or discomfort he might be feeling. Mac may hate him, but he’s still walking at a slow enough pace for Dennis to follow. 

He has no idea why. 

It’s a really secluded area. Besides the truck that almost ran them over there have been no cars they could try to hitch a ride with. It would also be eerily silent, if it weren’t for Mac and Dennis’ constant bickering.

“You know we’re never going to get anywhere with you limping and moaning like a pussy ass bitch right?”

“I seriously think my rib is broken dude”

“You still whining about that?”

“MY RIB IS BROKEN MAC I’M PROBABLY GONNA DIE ON THIS GODFORSAKEN ROAD AND MY CORPSE WILL BE EATEN BY RACOONS AND VARIOUS WOODLAND CREATURES, ALL BECAUSE  _ YOU _ DON’T HAVE THE STAMINA TO CARRY ME MORE THAN TWO FEET”

“YOU TAKE THAT BACK DUDE I HAVE THE STAMINA I HAVE LOTS OF STAMINA I JUST DON’T  _ WANT  _ TO CARRY YOU COS YOU’RE A WHINY LITTLE BITCH!”

“Mac, stop, seriously, stop”

Dennis  _ is  _ a whiny little bitch, everyone knows that, but this time the yelling has made his whole chest seare with pain, and he sits on the curb clutching at his side.

Mac can see they’re not going anywhere for awhile, so he sits besides Dennis. For some reason he can’t bring himself to go on on his own. 

“Ponderosa really fucked you up huh?” Mac gloats. All the worry he felt seeing Dennis get beat up has long turned into glee at seeing him suffer.

“I still don’t get it bro, I’ve been nothing but perfect to Maureen”

“Oh yeah? What about all the times you cheated on her?”

“Yeah but  _ she  _ doesn’t know that”

“Dude” Mac looks at him in disgust “why do you treat all the girls you date like garbage?”

Mac doesn’t even  _ like  _ women as a whole, he’s never gotten them, but the way Dennis treats them still unsettles him. Like they’re not fully human, completely indifferent to what they might be feeling or thinking. To him these girls are no more than walking, talking status symbols, and though Mac hates the girls Dennis dates (even more than he hates girls in general) his behavior towards them still makes Mac deeply uncomfortable.

“I do not! They’re  _ lucky  _ they get to be with me”

“You really believe that huh?”

“Oh because you’re so good to the chicks  _ you _ date! Oh wait, you don’t date any chicks, they all think you’re gross”

“THEY DON’T THINK I’M GROSS DUDE I’M SUPER NOT GROSS!! I just… I can’t be bothered with all that shit”

Dennis looks at him sideways 

“You never liked a girl?”

“Of course I’ve liked girls I’ve liked loads of girls!”

“Ok name one”

“Jennifer”

“So then why couldn’t you get it up with her?”

“Look” 

Mac’s looking off into the distance. What he does or doesn’t do isn’t any of Dennis’ business. He should stop talking right now and just leave him sitting there with his stupid rib. He has no idea why he doesn’t.

“Look, it’s… I’m not… it’s complicated alright?”

“How is it complicated huh?”

“I’m not gonna get interrogated by you! It’s none of your business!”

“Mac. If we’re gonna be stuck here together at least try not to be so much of an asshole ok? Why’d you come to my party if you hate me so much anyways?”

“My dad sent me over, to sell drugs”

“Dude your dad sucks”

Mac springs up to his feet. It’s one thing for Dennis to insult him,  _ but his dad? _

“NO YOUR DAD SUCKS”

“I know that man” Dennis says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world “my dad’s a total douche”

What do you answer to that? Mac sits back down

“But your dad’s putting you in danger dude, what do you think would have happened if the cops caught you selling drugs at the party?”

“Nothing” Mac smiles triumphantly, he’s really proud of his cunning, he never gets the chance to be cunning “cos I gave my backpack to Tim Murphy and told the cops that  _ he _ was selling drugs when I called them. He’s totally fucked”

“Nice” 

Dennis can’t help feeling proud. He’s taught him well. 

“That doesn’t change the fact that he put you in danger though. He’s always putting you in danger, you shouldn’t be responsible for bringing in money bro, you’re seventeen”

Mac looks at him resentfully “you’d never get it, you’ve been rich your whole life”

“But still” Dennis isn’t deterred “he shouldn’t be treating you like that. Why do you always have to do everything he says anyways huh?”

“He’s…”

How to explain it? It’s like, when you’re growing up, you gotta look up to someone right? Mac always wished his mom talked to him more. He  _ knows  _ she loves him, but when she’s home she just sits and smokes her cigarettes, maybe grunts something that sounds like “thanks” when he makes her his mac n’ cheese. That’s as much as he’s gonna get from her in the way of appreciation. Not his dad though, his dad actually cares about what he does with his life. In fact, it’s really important to him that Mac grow up right. Is learning to be a good drug dealer growing up right though? 

“What else am I gonna do huh? Should I do everything  _ you _ say instead?”

“What about doing whatever the fuck  _ you _ want man? What do  _ you  _ want”

Why the fuck does Mac suddenly feel like crying? Goddamn country air it must be full of pollen or something. 

“No one gets to do whatever they want Dennis”

“Why not?”

“ _ Because  _ dude! This is real life! Where am I gonna live if I refuse to deal huh?”

_ Who’s gonna love me? _

“It’s not just that man. You base your identity on what your dad wants you to be. You date girls you don’t even wanna date”

“I do too wanna date them!”

_ Why the fuck am I trying to help Mac?  _ Why the fuck am I still investing my precious time on this stupid, hateful, cowardly,  _ stupid  _ asshole?, Dennis thinks. What do you think you’ll get out of it huh? He didn’t even  _ try _ to help you when you were getting beat up, he’s just some guy you know, some guy who’s never gonna stick up for you. All he cares about is pleasing his asshole dad. Stop giving him free therapy, he doesn’t fucking deserve your time or attention Dennis. 

So stupid, thinking this asshole could protect me. 

Without their squabbling the night has become silent, besides the occasional rustling of trees and the chirping of crickets. 

“Are you ok to keep walking?” It's Mac changing the subject. So Dennis gets up and walks. 

He wishes Mac would put his arm around him and help him, but Mac just walks a few steps ahead. Not looking back once.

* * *

Dee and Charlie are parked in front of a Wawa. They got a couple of beers with Dee’s fake ID and decided against going to Charlie’s. Mainly because Charlie hates being home. He’s gonna move out as soon as he can. Anywhere, he doesn’t care. 

“Do you think Dennis’ gonna be ok?”

Dee rolls her eyes 

“Of course he’s gonna be ok. He’s always ok. Everybody frets and worries like he’s made out of glass or something. All my life I’ve been hearing  _ be careful with Dennis, Dennis is so sensitive, he’s so special.  _ He doesn’t deserve it Charlie, he’s an awful human being, and he’d fuck either of us over in a second”

“So why’d you set him up with Mac then? Why go through all this trouble?”

“Because Mac sucks too. They deserve each other”

“Yeah he does kinda suck”

They sit in comfortable silence and drink 

“Hey Dee? What do you think you’re gonna do after school’s over?”

“Like after we graduate? Dennis wants me to go with him to college, I don’t know why, he’s just gonna ignore me there too. I just wanna work on my acting career, I’ll have my brace off, you know? Start with community theatre, do stand up, that sort of thing”

“You gotta keep being my friend when you’re famous”

Dee’s used to hearing stuff like that said 

sarcastically . But Charlie’s genuine. He actually thinks she could make it. 

“You think I’d dump you? You’re like, my best friend Charlie”

“I thought Fatty Magoo was your best friend”

“Nah, I hate her”

When Dennis started to bring Mac and Charlie over, Dee had been glad for all the wrong reasons. See, like her brother, Dee’s utmost ambition was achieving popularity. They’d been conditioned by movies and tv to believe they were going to be high school royalty. They were smart, rich and beautiful, of course they were going to be popular, it was a given.

And then, the back brace happened, and it had ruined all of Dee’s chances. Now she wasn’t the thin and pretty blond who lived in a mansion. She was just the Aluminum Monster, and that’s all she’d ever be. Dennis didn’t have to walk around in a stupid metal cage, his chances were still intact, so it was very comforting to see the golden child, mama’s perfect little boy, ruin his chances at popularity by hanging out with the drug dealing snitch and fucking Dirtgrub of all people. 

The day that all started to change was the day Dee discovered Charlie at the living room piano. Mac and Dennis were in Dennis’ room doing god knows what, and she’d gone downstairs to get something to eat when she’d heard the music. 

No one had ever played that piano, it was just there as a status symbol, a way of saying “we can afford a piano, so we’ll have a piano, even if no one has any use for a piano”. And now, she heard the most beautiful melody coming from it, and when she poked her head into the living room she’d seen Dirtgrub, of all people, deep in concentration, playing something that was catchy and sorrowful at the same time, singing about spiders, and dreams, and sadness. Though she couldn’t understand the subject matter of the song, she’d felt drawn to it, and she’d made her presence known, gesturing to Charlie to keep playing.

She couldn’t help clapping once the song was over. 

“Wow… that was really beautiful”

Charlie had never had someone call his music “beautiful”. He had a beat up keyboard at home, and his mom would beam whenever he played, but his mom’s opinion held no sway on him, he’d come to hate her long ago. Mac and Dennis treated his music like it was a waste of time, another weird and stupid thing he did, like drink paint and dig up worms. Not Dee. It seemed to him she really understood it. Maybe not the song itself, maybe not what he was trying to express through it, but she understood the drive which compelled him to sing, to play, to draw, to create. It was because she was a theater kid herself. She knew what it was like to lose oneself in one’s art, to find purpose in creating for its own sake. Be it a song or a character, it amounted to the same thing.

She’d started to hang out with them after that. Dennis was still his normal narcissistic self, only ramped up to eleven because he had Mac feeding the flames of his exaggerated ego. Mac was a hateful idiot, equal parts bigotry and stupidity, and Charlie was, well, Charlie, but Dee still clung to them. She had come such an outcast at school that this little group of misfits seemed like her best and only chance at friendship. In the end, they were all basically the same, so much wrong with them that you could spot it a mile away.

Mac and Dennis were inseparable, and they were so wrapped up in each other they had little room for anyone else. But artsy kids, artsy kids are drawn to each other.

“We should hang out just the two of us more often you know? Mac and Dennis can be pretty mean” Charlie says, as if reading her mind

“Don’t worry, if we get them to hook up they won’t be so mean anymore”

“You think?”

“Yeah. They’re just like that because they’re repressed and horny all the time. They must be fucking out in the sticks right now”

“Either that or they’re killing each other”

“Either one works”

  
  


* * *

“Never gonna give you up never gonna let you down never gonna run around and hurt youuu”

“WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP MAN?!”

Mac hates Rick Astley. He hates Rick Astley so goddamn much. 

“Look, you’re gonna have to tell me why you’re being such an asshole to me all this time, it’s getting real old”

“ _ I’m  _ being an asshole??” Mac turns around and Dennis wonders how someone who’s been walking this long has so much energy to get offended like that “ _ I’M BEING AN ASSHOLE?!  _ Dennis you left for Jersey and you didn’t even tell me! Then you went 56 days without calling me  _ once,  _ and you want me to be cool with that??”

“56 days”

“Uh… give or take”

“Look, Mac”

Dennis sits on the curb again. They’ve been walking for like an hour and their surroundings are still unknown to them and completely deserted. 

“There’s a reason I didn’t contact you the whole time ok?”

“And the reason is?”

Mac stands in front of him with his arms crossed. Dennis can’t help but notice how good he looks, imposing. He’d never tell him so, he’s always trying to stuff these thoughts down. Goddamnit Dennis why won’t it work?

“Look, who gives a fuck about that huh? I just wanna go home” he says with his head in his hands. He’s regretting speaking up. He doesn’t need anyone. 

“Oh you wanna go home? Cool, you better call you a cab”

“Don’t be such an asshole dude”

“Then answer my question!”

“Ok” Dennis breathes in. He’s not a coward. He’s a god, he can do this.

“I broke off contact with you cos  _ you _ were gonna do it anyways alright? I just rather get it over with”

“Why the fuck did you think that?”

“Look” 

Dennis sighs. He was hoping he wouldn’t have to do this.

“Remember the last time I went to your house? Remember what your dad said?”

Mac had wanted him to see some stupid robot he’d gotten for Christmas when he was a kid. He was walking Dennis to the door when his dad called him into the kitchen.

“Hey son. I don’t want that boy in my house anymore”

“Why not?” 

“The kid’s a fag, boy, and I don’t want his kind of people hanging around here”

Of course Dennis had heard, Mac’s house was tiny, and he was meant to hear. Luther had made sure of it.

Mac’s confused. He’s used to being confused but goddamn it, this  _ really  _ doesn’t make any sense. Dennis doesn’t give a shit about his own parents but he cares about what  _ Mac’s _ dad thinks?

“I know you’re not a homo Den, my dad’s just like that. He thinks everyone’s gay”

“You told me that. You said:  _ I know you’re straight Dennis, you just dress faggy, that’s all. Why would I be friends with you if you were a queer?  _ Those were your exact words”

“I know dude, I remember. So what? You get offended by my dad? My dad talks like that about everyone bro, yesterday he called me a pea brained punk-ass bitch just for breathing too loud. He does it out of endearment”

Dennis sighs. It’s Mac. Of course he’s gonna have to spell everything out.

“DUDE A TRUCK!””

“Oh my god”

They can see the headlights rounding the curve ahead and Dennis springs to his feet.

“I’m gonna push you in front of it so it’ll have to stop. Ready?”

Dennis is appalled “you’re gonna what?!”

Mac gets behind him ready to push, and Dennis draws strength from the sudden panic he’s feeling to push him off. 

“Stop it you fucking idiot! You’re gonna get me killed!!”

“It’s… gonna… work… just let me…”

And that’s how the truck finds them, on the curb, wrestling and tearing at each other’s shirts, struggling to throw each other in front of it. 

Luckily this doesn’t scare off the driver, and he stops a few feet ahead of them. Mac and Dennis spend a second considering if they’re mad at each other enough to let the truck leave and continue their fighting. They’re not, but by a very thin margin.

“You boys need a ride?”

The truck driver leans over to open the passenger door. He’s downright scary, with a huge scar crossing his whole face, but to Mac and Dennis he looks like an angel.

“Yeah! Thanks man we’re going to south Philly” Mac says as he climbs into the truck.

“Which way were you waking?”

Mac points at the way they’ve been walking for more than an hour.

“That’s the wrong way kid. Hey what about your friend?”

He looks over Mac’s shoulder, where Dennis is pathetically trying to climb up to the passenger seat and failing, with the expression and demeanor of a long suffering martyr 

“Weak ass bitch”

Mac extends his hand and pulls him into the truck with no care or finesse, and Dennis practically collapses into the seat with his eyes turned up to the skies. Nobody’s suffered like he’s suffered. Ever.

“I’ll leave you boys at a bus stop sound good? you can get some sleep if you want, I’ll wake you”

But Dennis is already slumped over Mac, breathing steadily, and he feels a warmth emanating from his shoulder where Dennis has rested his head, extending to his whole body.  _ Why the fuck did I hate him so much?  _ is the last thought that goes through his mind before succumbing to sleep himself. 

* * *

“Where are we?”

Mac’s unceremoniously jolted awake by the truck driver on his left. To his right Dennis is still sleeping, drooling all over the passenger window. The early morning sun is lighting up his face and Mac thinks that he’s never looked more beautiful, but he’s instantly disappointed that he’s not leaning on his shoulder anymore, so he violently elbows him awake, completely disregarding the broken rib.

“Ow you asshole! Do you wanna kill me or something?! You could pierce one of my lungs like that! You could drive my rib right through my heart!!” 

The trucker ignores him, “We’re here. It’s farther from Philly than where I picked you up, but here you can take a bus that’ll take you straight home”.

“Alright man, thanks!”

“Oh and kid? Take care of your friend. From how he’s been moaning in his sleep I think he might be dying”

A bus is just pulling out and they run to catch it. Once inside they both stand looking at each other.

The driver looks at them expectantly. 

“Well?”

“Go on Den what are you waiting for? pay the tickets”

“ _ Me?  _ I don’t have any money dude!”

“ _ What?!” _

“I was at my house man I didn’t exactly have time to grab my wallet when you dragged me away”

“Well  _ I _ don’t have any money either!”

“Weren’t you selling drugs at the party?”

The bus driver raises his eyebrows but Mac and Dennis are completely ignoring him and the passengers, who are enjoying this little piece of morning entertainment. 

“OH GODDAMNIT! I GAVE ALL MY MONEY TO TIM MURPHY!!” 

Mac and Dennis are sitting on the curb again. 

“You’re an idiot”

“No, you’re an idiot”

Seems like it’s going to be a long day too. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

“Oh this is just fantastic! Now we’re walking under the July sun on what is probably the hottest day of the year! maybe the decade! Maybe the buzzards will get me when I collapse, they’ll eat my corpse and everyone’s gonna be like, _why are those birds eating that guy’s corpse?_ And you’ll have to say _BECAUSE I GAVE ALL MY MONEY TO TIM MURPHY!!”_

“There are no buzzards in Chester you dumbshit, it’s only like a couple of hours walk. Plus, this isn’t even my fault dude, it’s Dee’s fault and I’m gonna kill that bitch as soon as I find her”

They’re dragging their feet through what are probably not the nicer parts of the city. They tried panhandling at the bus stop and got a few pennies and a chewed up piece of gum, so Mac ended up lashing out at the passersby and they had the cops called on them and had to scram. Now they’re half heartedly sticking their thumbs out as they trudge forward (at least they’re trudging in the right direction this time), but no one seems to want to give a ride to two beat up looking teenagers. Mac is looking more unsavory than ever, his hair disheveled, dirty jeans and army boots, while Dennis looks like a hot mess. his pants are dirty from sitting on curbs, he’s limping dramatically, bruised all over and his mascara is smudged. Both their shirts are torn from trying to throw each other in front of the truck. They look exactly how they feel.

“So… what were you saying before we got picked up?”

“Huh?” Dennis is only pretending he doesn’t know what Mac’s talking about. The truth is that the subject has been running non stop through his head, and discussing it in the harsh light of day is very different from talking about it at night, when the shadows obscure your face and you can at least preserve a little bit of dignity.

“You were telling me why you didn’t wanna be friends anymore”

“What? I…”

“About my dad remember? My dad pissed you off or something”

Why does he have to spell everything out?? Dennis curses Mrs Mac’s one pack a day habit during pregnancy, or the lead paint in Mac’s room, the lack of stimulation when he was a baby… something has to explain how slow this stupid, sexy fucker is.

“No Mac, _you_ pissed me off, I don’t give a shit about your dad”

“Dude I defended you!”

“...”

Fuck it. Dennis is hot and bruised and tired, so he just blurts it out, not even stopping his onward limping to look him in the face. 

“It’s because I _am_ a queer Mac. I’m fucking queer ok? So if you never wanna see me again I get it, I’m just sick of pretending all the time with everyone, I’m done. So do whatever the fuck you want”

Fuck it, it’s over. Dennis has nor the strength nor the interest to conceal it. Fuck it. He just wants to get home and sleep and eat and sleep again. Fuck it if Mac hates him. Fuck him. 

He feels one breath away from a massive fucking meltdown.

He looks at Mac defiantly, expecting outrage, but Mac just looks the most disoriented Dennis has ever seen him, frozen in his tracks, and it makes him instantly glad about what he’s just said. At least it’ll be fun to shock and confuse this asshole. He could get into this. At least it’s a break from the monotony.

Dennis feels himself regaining control again. 

“But Dennis… you like girls!”

Mac practically drops onto the curb with his head in his hands, as if he’s suddenly feeling very dizzy. 

“So?”

“So how can you be gay if you like girls?!”

“Have you ever heard the term _bisexual_?”

Dennis is enjoying himself immensely, it makes him feel all sophisticated and European. He hovers over Mac with his hands on his hips. If this is the last conversation he’s gonna have with him, at least Dennis is winning it. He’s waiting for Mac to storm off in a rage, or threaten him with the fires of hell, but Mac doesn’t seem like he’s going to do any of those things. In fact, he only looks distressed, like all the gears in his head are turning at an unheard of speed and he’s struggling to keep up.

“But… but that doesn’t exist! That’s just gays who wanna pretend they’re straight!”

“That may be the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard you say man, and that’s saying a lot. If I wanted to pretend to be straight, wouldn’t I just, I don’t know, keep pretending I’m straight?”

“So you’re banging dudes??” Mac looks up at him, asking as if he’s in great pain. 

“No, I’ve never been with a guy”

Dennis instantly regrets saying it, since all of a sudden he’s feeling less sophisticated, less above Mac in terms of experience and worldliness. Goddamnit Dennis. Be cool, be mysterious. 

Still, the fact that Mac hasn’t run off in a panic or punched him in the face is starting to feel straight up comforting. He _does_ care about him after all. He cares about their friendship! He wants to fix it! Why else would he be trying to understand? Dennis allows himself to feel something he hasn’t felt for years. Or ever? It’s like a small light inside his chest. Like a warmth spreading. Or maybe that’s the rib. He’s unsure. 

“Then how do you know?”

“Huh?”

“How do you know you’re ga… _bi-sex-shu-al_ ” he says the word as if it costs him great effort “if you’ve never been with a dude?”

“I don’t know Mac I just do. Anything else?”

Mac lifts his head up from his hands and suddenly his whole face lights up. 

“Dude… a church!”

Dennis turns around. Across the street is what appears to be a long abandoned, run down church, behind some knolls filled with debris and long unkempt grass. 

“So what?”

“So what?! Dennis! It’s a miracle!! I asked for guidance and the Lord put this church in front of me!”

“I’m pretty sure the church was there all along Mac. Besides, guidance for what?! What the fuck would you need guidance for?”

But Mac’s already sprinting towards the church, crossing the street and the abandoned wasteland leading up to it.

“Dude that church’s abandoned, do you wanna get mugged or something?”

Dennis limps behind him, trying to keep up

“What the fuck would a mugger take Dennis? Our three pennies?”

He has a point, so Dennis follows him up to the building, which looks even worse up close. It’s built in the Gothic Revival style, not that either of them can tell, which only makes it look creepier, with its mold, peeling paint and boarded up windows. Dennis shudders to imagine how it must look at night, or in the winter with the sky dark and full of rolling clouds. The bright summer midday light has a different effect, leaving it no less sinister but overall stinkier, the heat amplifying it’s smells, with all its decadence highlighted by the unforgiving sun. 

Mac is acting like he’s found his long lost home, and enthusiastically pulls at the big wooden front doors, one of which cracks open just enough for a person to go in. 

“Mac!! Don’t go in there Mac! What the fuck are you doing!!” 

But he’s already disappeared into what from where Dennis is standing is pitch black darkness, and he has to follow, if only to keep berating him.

He stops in his tracks once he crosses the threshold. The inside is huge, much bigger than what you’d think from the outside. The roof consists of big wooden domes, and even though the pews are full of dust and debris, trash littered across the halls, stained glass windows mostly broken and boarded up from the outside, the church maintains an air of solemnity, sacredness. Maybe it’s because of its abandoned state, with the rays of sunlight that escape through the boards making the dust dance in the stifling air, dust Dennis imagines has been there since the beginning of the century. Maybe it’s because of the eerie silence, broken only by Mac’s boots as he slowly walks towards the rundown altar, which from where Dennis is standing is hardly visible through the gloom. 

Mac comes to stand before the altar. Anything of value is long gone, and there are bottles, syringes and cigarette buts strewn around everywhere, but on the wall behind it still stands a wooden cross, a long suffering Christ hanging from it, carved with care and devotion many decades ago by some long dead artisan. Mac looks up to him now, and speaks

“Dear God. Hi, it’s me, Mac. You may not recognize me because I usually go to another church, it’s much nicer than this one, this one’s a shithole but I know it’s not your fault. It’s these people’s fault they can’t keep their church nice, because they’re probably godless heathens that only wanna do sinful stuff like shoot heroin and bang each other in the butt... uh, about that: that’s why I’m here actually, you see…”

Dennis decides to sit down on a pew near the door, choosing one that’s not too enveloped in darkness, because the church still creeps him the fuck out. He can’t make out what Mac is saying because the echo distorts every sound, but he figures it’s probably him begging God to forgive Dennis for his homo ways, so he dozes off to the low, comforting rumble.

Meanwhile, Mac prays on, but he’s having trouble being direct about his problems with God

“Look, the thing is, you know my friend Dennis? Yeah, the one that’s going to hell. No, not the dirty one, the sissy one. Yeah, him right there. No he’s not dead! He’s pretending he’s really hurt so I’ll feel sorry for him. The thing is, and this is kind of complicated, pay attention: Oh! I didn’t mean it was complicated _for you,_ I know you’re all knowing and shit, just that…”

“OH SPIT IT OUT ALREADY!”

Mac jumps almost to the ceiling, and quickly scans his surroundings 

“God? Is that you?”

“No you asshole!”

The voice seems to have come from a confession booth off to his left, so he approaches it cautiously and, after considering his options, slips into the dark of the confessional, a strong stench of urine making his eyes water.

“So, what have you come to confess?”

It’s the same raspy voice that yelled at him, it’s owner barely visible to Mac through the wooden partition, occupying the place of the priest, where he was comfortably sleeping off a bender until Mac’s confused diatribe awoke him, peaking his interest. Let’s see what this little asshole’s got to say, at least it’s a break from wallowing in his own misery.

“Are you a priest?” Mac asks tentatively 

“I’m lots of things”

“So… can you hear my confession?”

“Yeah, sure kid why not”

“But are you or aren’t you a priest? I don’t wanna be giving my holly confession to some dirty old homeless guy”

“I told you I’d hear your stupid confession you sack of shit!” And then, more composed, as if the voice was just remembering his role “so, go on my son, what’s troubling you?”

“Ok. You know my friend Dennis?”

“How the fu… how would I know your friend Dennis son?”

“Oh. Right. Well, I’ve got a friend called Dennis, and he’s like, my best friend in the whole wide world. Along with Charlie but Charlie’s like my old best friend, and Den’s my new best friend. Not so new though cos I’ve know him a couple of years, but newer than Charlie. Not that Charlie stopped being my best friend but I guess they’re both my best friends? Just one’s newer…”

“Does this have a point son?”

“I’m getting to it ok?! Ok. The thing is, I was just taking to my best friend, to Dennis, that is, right before God decided to set this church in front of me to guide me, and he told me something”

“What did he tell you my son?”

“Ok: you promise not to smite him?”

“Not to what?”

“You know, smite him”

The man on the other side of the partition audibly sighs.

“Ok I won’t smite him”

“He told me he thinks he’s a queer”

“He’s a what?”

“A queer, a homo, a fruit, a…”

“Those are very derogatory terms my son, I suggest you use the word gay, or homosexual”

“He’s not though, he says he’s bisexual but I don’t think that even exists?”

“Why wouldn’t it exist?” 

“I don’t know father this is all very confusing to me” 

“Why?”

“Why? Cos I thought he was straight this whole time”

“And you’re concerned about him going to hell?”

“Oh no, he’s going to hell regardless, to like, a really bad circle of hell, super hell. Yeah, he’s screwed”

The voice seems disconcerted 

“So, um, why are you here then?”

“Ok. This is really gonna shock you cos I’m so manly and tough but…”

The man sighs “I won’t smite you”

“Oh thank God. Ok: the thing is: I think I may have feelings for Dennis?”

Mac winces as he speaks. He’d never said it out loud, and when he’s not instantly struck down from the heavens he feels a wave of relief wash over him. 

“So this should be good news for you! Now you have a shot”

“But _I_ don’t wanna go to hell father! Isn’t that a sin?”

“Er…” the voice seems to consider it “it depends”

“Depends on what?”

“What are your intentions with this boy?”

“I… I don’t know”

“Well? Do you wanna have a relationship with him or do you wanna just hump him and dump him?”

“What?! No!! I do not want to hump him and dump him!” 

“Hit it and quit it? Use him and lose him? Ejaculate and then evacuate? Nail him and…”

“NO!! No father I think I might be in love with him!”

Mac shocks himself with his vehemence. Shit. He really loves him doesn’t he? He didn’t even think about it before he blurted it out. He’s so screwed. 

“Then it’s not a sin!”

“It’s not?” Mac’s skeptic. This goes against everything he knows about God

“Do you read your Bible son?”

“Of course!” Says Mac, though he mainly just skims it for verses to prove to his friends that they’re going to hell.

“Do you know this verse? _There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.We love because he first loved us.”_

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means that you mustn’t be afraid son, you must embrace love, let it rid you of the fear of eternal damnation”.

“But what about the other stuff God said? About how banging dudes is wrong and you go straight to hell?”

“Where in the Bible does He say that?”

“Uh… lots of parts!”

“Ok so quote me one”

“Uh…”

“See? You can’t quote shit cos it’s not there”

“Did you just say shit father?”

“Oh, so you can curse but I can’t?”

“Uh yeah, good point. Well, what about all that stuff about not laying with man? I know there’s something like that in there somewhere, in the chapter where it says using condoms is wrong and that women have less rights than men”.

“ _Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law_. That’s Romans 13:8, it means that loving each other is the greatest law, if you love another, and your heart is pure, then you cannot sin”

“You’re… you’re trying to confuse me with your liberal biblicisms aren’t you?”

“What?! Look buddy I’m just quoting the Bible here. If you think you’re better than God then just say it”

“No! I don’t think I’m better than God!”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“What’s stopping me from what?”

“Jumping your friend’s bones”

“Well… what will my family think?”

“They probably won’t like it”

“I know!”

“So is your family above God?”

“What? No dude, it’s God first, then family, then bros and then hoes”

“Ok, so God says it’s ok, and _you_ wanna do it, and Dennis is potentially into it, so what’s your family got to do with it?”

“My dad’s not gonna like it”

“Is your dad gonna be the one banging Dennis?”

“Dude gross!”

“So why do you care if he likes it? Look kid, it’s your life, do you wanna be unhappy because you’re doing what your dad wants all the time?”

“Uh… I guess not”

“And you wanna make God happy don’t you?”

“Yeah!”

“So if you love someone, that makes God happy, and God is more important than your dad. If you don’t bang Dennis, you’re actually going against God. Do you wanna go against God kid? Do you want Him to smite you?”

“Hell no!”

“Ok so you’ve got your answer then, go and love that little bastard!”

“You think?”

“Yeah! God doesn’t give a fuck _who_ you’re fucking! He just wants you to be happy and in love! And screw your dad! Tell him that God said it’s ok. In fact, tell him that God told me that he should go fuck himself!”

“He told you that?”

“Yeah man! And you know priests talk to God right?”

“Yeah, that’s true”

“Ok so do it!”

“Ok! I will then! I’m gonna fuck Dennis!”

“YEAH! Go fuck Dennis! Go fuck his brains out!”

They’ve worked each other up, and simultaneously they run out of their respective cubicles and embrace in front of the booth.

“Oh father thank you so much!”

Meanwhile, Dennis has been woken with the growing commotion and limps his way to where the sounds are coming from, only to find Mac enthusiastically embracing a very dirty, very old homeless man, with tattered clothing, long hair and beard, and who smells strongly of piss and alcohol. 

“Wha… what’s going on?”

Mac turns joyfully towards him

“That’s Dennis!!”

“Oh yeah, he’s a snack alright”

Mac and the stranger high five. 

“What’s going on?” Dennis repeats himself

“Your friend here was just getting confession. That’ll be twenty dollars”

He extends his hand toward Mac

“Priests don’t charge bro!”

“I… I don’t think this guy’s a priest Mac”

“But I don’t have any money” Mac pleads with the stranger, ignoring Dennis

“How about those shoes then?”

The “priest” is eyeing Dennis’ brand new Adidas, which have fared better than the rest of his clothes and are still mostly white.

“I’m not giving you my shoes man!” Dennis begins to back up but the homeless man grabs him by the arm.

“No dude you can’t have his shoes” 

“I said gimme the shoes!”

“HE SAID HE AIN’T GIVING YOU HIS SHOES BITCH!” 

Mac shouts, and punches the man square on the jaw with all his strength, sending him straight to the floor with a sickening thud. There’s a second where Mac and Dennis look at each other with eyes wide open in shock, but Mac snaps out of it and grabs Dennis, pulling him out of the church, running through the wasteland and not stopping or looking back until they turn into an alley three blocks away, Dennis loudly wheezing.

“Oh my God oh my God I just punched a priest! I’m going to hell!”

He turns towards Dennis, and stops panicking immediately.

Because he’s looking straight at him and there’s something there in his eyes, something he’s never seen before.

“You… you punched him for me”

“Yeah. Yeah I guess I did” 

_No, don’t shoot me down_

. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There really was a big abandoned church in Chester, PA in the nineties, I did my (tiny little bit) of research! The fake priest character I probably ripped off from Cricket and it makes no sense that he would be there but please just go with it.
> 
> Comment me. Comment now. Me a comment needing a lot now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a pretty big time jump in here, I just hope it’s not confusing!

“Den?”

They’ve been looking intently at each other, in the alley between the dumpsters and garbage cans. Mac is still in shock that he punched a priest, and Dennis is equally in shock, that Mac would punch a priest for him, and that Mac still believed that a man who smelled like piss and tried to steal his shoes was a priest. 

Mac’s voice cracks. It’s now or never.

“How do you know you like boys if you’ve never been with one?”

Dennis is harshly pulled back to reality “fuck Mac not this again…”

“Because I could help you” Mac quickly interrupts before he can get any angrier.

“Help me… how?” _Please don’t say anything about conversion therapy_ Dennis thinks, _I swear I’ll knock your teeth out and shove them up your urethra._

“Well… _I’m_ a boy” Mac thinks he’s so sly, but the quivering of his voice and trembling of his hands betray him 

“Maybe you could try kissing me?”

Mac says that last part with his eyes shut, fists clenched at his sides. He can’t remember ever being this brave his whole life, and it’s terrifying.

“What?”

Dennis is dumbstruck. Of all the things he thought Mac would say, this was probably the last. He likes to think he knows all about his friends. He keeps binders on them, detailing his observations on their habits and behaviors, but this has completely blindsided him. Isn’t Mac supposed to be straight? I mean, he _did_ look at him all those times when they were jerking off, but that’s just natural, anyone would look if they had a literal sex god’s dick right besides them. 

But even if he wasn’t straight, Mac’s seen him faint from hunger. He’s seen him ugly cry, he’s seen him put on his girdle, his makeup, and now he’s seen him get beat up. He’s met his sister for God’s sake! Mac’s seen the absolute worst of him. He couldn’t possibly want to kiss Dennis for his own sake, could he? All the girls that have wanted to kiss Dennis have only seen the cool, confident Dennis, always in control, always beautiful. They don’t know the Dennis that frets over every little aspect of his own existence, they don’t know the Dennis that breaks down over even the slightest perceived criticism... who could want him like that? Having seen his makeup run from crying, having seen the veins in his neck pop from yelling? Having seen everything Mac has seen? 

Dennis’ vanity and egomania are born from his insecurity. He knows no one could love him if they knew the real him. Mac hasn’t been tricked into loving him, so he can’t possibly. Mac knows too much.

No, this is something else.

“Are… are you really offering to kiss me man?”

“Yeah dude” Mac’s voice is very small, and very hopeful. “To, you know, help you out”

_Give a fuck what they talking ‘bout I see you as a ten_

“To help _me_ out” Dennis’ mind is working in overdrive. What’s Mac’s angle? What’s he hoping to gain? Why the fuck is he doing this? Is it to in some way embarrass Dennis? Probably.

“Who told you I needed any help?” That’s right Dennis! Own him! Mac won’t beat you at... whatever this is.

“I don’t know dude I’m just trying to be a good friend!”

Good, Mac’s riled up. Dennis may not understand what the fuck he wants but he feels like he’s got the upper hand again. 

“Ok then, so kiss me” 

Ha! Call his bluff. This idiot’s not gonna be able to go through with it. They look intently at each other. It’s a game of chicken and Dennis has no intention of losing.

“Ok, maybe I will” Mac says defensively 

“Ok so do it”

“What, you scared?”

“I’m not scared! I said do it!”

“I WILL THEN!”

“GOOD!” Dennis Screams. They’ve been getting progressively louder and he has no idea why. 

Silence. 

_It’s now or never_ , Mac thinks 

And in one swift movement, he closes the gap between them and grabs Dennis’ head by the nape of his neck, clashing his mouth against his so violently Dennis for a second worries that he’s knocked one of his teeth loose.

“Whoa whoa whoa” he pushes Mac away “is that how you kiss?? No wonder girls hate you!”

“WELL I’VE NEVER KISSED A GUY BEFORE!!”

“Ok ok buddy, calm down” Dennis feels under control again. And he feels under control because he’s _in_ control again. Here’s something he knows that Mac doesn’t. Here’s another occasion to feel superior. 

“Look. I’m gonna teach you how to do it alright? Now calm down, breathe, look at me” he’s calmed Mac down so many times before, the kids at school call him the rat whisperer.

“Ok” he waits until he’s got Mac’s full attention “now, approach me… slowly!” He ads when he sees Mac preparing to lunge at him again. Mac takes a couple of steps. They’re face to face, and Dennis is suddenly very conscious of that inch of height he has on Mac. He’s in complete control of the situation. He feels safe, and also, he has no idea what he’s doing or why.

“Now: put your hands on my hips” Mac places them tentatively on Dennis’ sides. He’s been chastised for being too rough so now he overcompensates, and barely touches him, every nerve ending in his hands that make contact with the fabric of his pants buzzing.

“And I’m gonna put my hands here” Dennis says, a little softer, as he places his hands on each side of Mac’s face, thumbs caressing his cheekbones on their own accord. 

“Now close your eyes”

“Then you gotta close your eyes too dude!”

“Ok ok, and don’t call me dude when we’re about to kiss”

Mac closes his eyes and Dennis smirks. _Sucker_ he thinks, like hell I’m gonna close my eyes.

“Now I’m gonna kiss you” Dennis says very softly, as he brings his mouth up to Mac’s, hesitates, for just a second, and then kisses him slowly, softly, allowing himself to feel Mac’s breath, quivering against his. Dennis can feel the electricity coursing through his veins, and through Mac; they’re two live wires sparking against each other, and without even realizing it, Dennis closes his eyes. 

Mac’s kissed loads of girls before, but kissing Dennis is like nothing he’s ever experienced. His mouth tastes... like Dennis’ mouth, and yet, to him it feels like… like Dennis’ mouth. There’s not a metaphor in this world that would do it justice, because there’s not a thing Mac can think of that’s better than this. Watching the sunset on a tropical beach, melting into cool satin sheets after a long day, huddling by a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate while watching the snow fall outside. These are all things Mac’s never experienced, but he knows they would pale in comparison. Winning a karate tournament, Jesus coming down from the heavens to tell him he’s a good boy, an “I love you” from his dad… none of those things deserve to be even mentioned in the same breath as Dennis’ mouth against his own.. Feeling his breath, something as intimate as his breath on him. His spit, which is now the same as Mac’s spit, mingling, mixing, their bodies melting into one.

Nothing else can be compared. It’s not like winning a fight and it’s not like getting a medal. 

But it’s a little like cuddling with Poppins. Like throwing rocks at trains with Charlie. Like the lullabies his mom used to sing to him when she still spoke.

Like coming home. 

A cat loudly landing on top of a metal dumpster next to them makes them both jump, eyes opening and meeting for the first time. 

“So” Mac’s voice comes out as a hoarse whisper, and he clears his throat, suddenly embarrassed, like Adam realizing for the first time that he’s naked, “so you think you like that?” 

“Yeah” Dennis is surprised to hear his own voice, it’s not any steadier that Mac’s. This is not what kissing feels like, this is brand new “yeah I like that”

“Maybe… maybe we could keep doing it?”

Dennis doesn’t answer, he just pulls him in again, and this time they know the spell isn’t going to break so easy. They were so careful the first time, it was so fragile, what they had just discovered, and now it’s as if they both suddenly realize that it’s indestructible. They let their tongues explore, they let themselves bite and suck, pull, grab, hands frantically roaming across each other’s bodies. Dennis’ hand stops at the front of Mac’s pants. “You _really_ like it huh?” He snickers, because even then, he can’t help being an asshole, and he rubs up against Mac’s bulge with his open palm, only breaking contact to open his pants and slowly reach into his underwear where his huge, leaking…

**2020**

“MAC! Are you telling the kids about me giving you a handjob?!!!”

Dennis interrupts Mac. He’s just getting home from work and has walked in on his husband waxing poetically about what appears to be underage dumpster sex to their son and his new girlfriend, who are visiting home from college for winter vacation. 

“Oh dad thank god you’re here!” Dennis Jr. springs up theatrically from his seat at the kitchen table and goes to hide behind Dennis. “He’s been holding us hostage for hours!”

“That’s not true!” The pretty red haired girl of about twenty pipes up from besides Mac, “your dad’s a great storyteller! He was telling us about how you two got together, Mr. McDonald'' she says to Dennis Sr.

“Yeah!” Mac pouts, “I’m a natural storyteller, I keep telling them!” He gestures to Dennis and Dennis. But it’s just for show, he knows they love his stories, they’re just naturally sarcastic. 

“It’s Mr. Reynolds” Dennis corrects her. Because his son’s last name is McDonald people assume he changed his last name to Mac’s. Ha! He wishes.

Mac gets up from his seat and offers it to Dennis “sit down baby you look beat. I’ll make you some tea”, and he goes behind the kitchen counter to put on the kettle.

“Is it all true?” The red headed girl asks Dennis Sr. with wide eyes. She was completely smitten by Mac, Dennis Jr. knew they’d get along, they’re both hopeless romantics. It irks him a bit that he chooses partners so similar to his dad, but what’s he gonna do? He’s more like his other dad than he’d care to admit, and their types of personalities tend to gravitate towards the caretaker type. 

“Not difficult, we’re _challenging”,_ Dennis Sr had told him when he was little, “a fun challenge! Like a really hard video game… and some people, people like Mac, they just love a challenge” Dennis Jr. knew this was true, because every day he’d seen Mac rise to that challenge, and Dennis thrive because of it.

“I have no idea what Mac’s been telling you, but if it’s that my bitch of a sister got me beat up within an inch of my life because she wanted to play matchmaker then yeah, it’s true”.

“Oh come on” Mac interjects from behind the kitchen counter, “we hadn’t even gotten to that part yet but his rib wasn’t even broken, they laughed him out of the hospital. Dee _is_ a bitch though, that’s true”

He sets a steaming cup of tea in front of Dennis “it’s _all_ true, and it was really romantic, we even went to the prom together, the jabronis at school were shitting their pants! It was badass”

The red haired girl is making googly eyes at Mac “that’s so brave! Being out in the nineties, and in high school?! I bet that takes guts”

“Oh but Mac didn’t come out until like five years later” Dennis Sr snickers.

“How is that possible?” The girl asks confused 

“He said dad didn’t count cos he’s so girly” Dennis Jr laughs. He’s always gotten a kick out of that.

“Oh and all those beefcakes didn’t count either huh?” Dennis Sr smirks 

“Look it’s complicated, alright?” Mac says “and oh! Dennis didn’t even say _I love you_ until I adopted Dennis Jr!” Dennis Jr had come along as a product of one of Dennis’ one night stands. Of course they hadn’t been exclusive in the beginning, all the teenage hormones had made that impossible. And when that one night stand showed up, with an eight month pregnancy, asking Dennis to step up because she couldn’t, Mac had been the one to jump into fatherhood with both eyes closed. And seeing him so certain, Dennis hadn’t had any alternative but to jump in right besides him. Hand in hand. 

“It’s complicated,” Dennis says with a wave of the hand. 

“And when did your grandpa come around?” The girl asks Dennis Jr

“Frank? He doesn’t really give a shit”

“No, Mac’s dad, the scary one”

“He came around when he realized he wasn’t getting a grandson any other way” Dennis Sr smirks. “If you come with us to visit him tomorrow you can ask him yourself, he just loves talking about his son’s gay relationship” Dennis Sr hates visiting Luther in prison but he puts up with it, for Mac’s sake.

“Oh shit we should get going!” Dennis Jr springs up from his seat, “we’re going to go see Dee’s show and we gotta pick up Charlie on the way”

“Really?” Mac scrunches his nose 

“Yeah I know” Dennis Jr says as he plants a kiss on his head “but she’s really excited about us being there, and I missed the last one”

“Lucky” Dennis Sr utters.

“Mr. Reynolds, Mac, it’s been a pleasure meeting you both” the redhair beams at them as she gets up from her chair and takes her boyfriend’s arm.

“Oh! I told Dee and Charlie we’d bring them over for dinner, is that ok?” Dennis Jr says

“Sure!” Mac beams “I’ll make my famous mac n’ cheese”

“Alright! See you in a bit!”

“DENNIS!” Mac starts to get up but the kids are already out the door “WEAR A SCARF IT’S COLD OUTSIDE! Deeeniiiiiis”. 

“He knows what he’s doing Mac he’s twenty years old”

“I like her” Mac says abruptly changing the subject 

“Did you let her get a word in? Or was it just lavish descriptions of underage sex”

But Dennis isn’t mad, that’s just how they bicker. They’ve been doing it for almost thirty years.

“How was work?”

“Not good, I had to put down a yellow lab but the family wanted the body to bury it”

“Oooh so you didn’t get to keep the skin? Next time baby” says Mac placing a reassuring hand on Dennis’ shoulder 

Dennis smiles nostalgically “It _is_ sort of romantic, isn’t it? Our story I mean” 

“Yeah” Mac chuckles “imagine if I hadn’t met that priest, we may have never gotten together”

“Yeah, that… priest. Right”

“Our lives woulda been so different Den, we would have never had a son!”

“And you’d still be in the closet, and a raging bigot too”

“ _you’d_ still be creeping on women and treating them like shit”

“We’d probably be alcoholics”

“Naw man, I woulda been a badass”

“In what scenario aren’t you a badass?” 

“None. I’m always a badass”

Dennis looks at Mac’s hand, which has naturally fallen into his during the course of the conversation. He knows every freckle, every scar. He’s looked at this hand more than he’s looked at his own, and he wants to keep looking at it forever. 

He’s home

“Yeah baby boy”, he smiles at him and Mac’s whole face lights up, “that you are”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I wrote this after writing a very depressing fic that I wanted to get out of my head. I hope it turned out alright, or at least entertaining. 
> 
> I worked in at least one line of Tyler’s A Boy is a Gun into each chapter. Why? Reasons. This is the song, and I recommend listening to it cos it’s beautiful as fuck https://youtu.be/9JQDPjpfiGw
> 
> I’m gonna start writing a sort of middle of the road fic now, not awful like Mac and Dennis Die and not they-got-together-in-high-school-and-nothing-bad-ever-happened-again, just, a realistic take on their lives, because for *reasons* their characters, stories and relationship really resonate with me and I can’t stop writing them.
> 
> Please tell me if you liked this one and whatever criticisms you have! It means a lot to me.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! I'll update regularly.


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